The Old School Lunch

[From S.I.]

“Paula Creamer LPGA star, on why she picked golf over cheerleading when a scheduling conflict forced her to choose at age 12: ‘My dad asked me if I wanted to cheer for other people or have people cheer for me.’”

This goes back to the Steve Nash post a while back. Why on earth are girls brought up from a young age to be cheerleaders? Let’s be serious, that’s not a sport. Yes, I know it takes physical fitness and coordination and teamwork and yes I know they have competitions between schools but that’s completely artificial. The actual cheerleading, the cheerleading that we all see on TV is of, you know, football and basketball teams. Cheering men on as they make the big bucks and play in the stadiums with crowds in the seats. Why should we deny that to girls growing up?

[Rant time]

When I worked in social services, an old co-worker of mine who used to work in a treatment facility for teens said that one of the most disturbing parts of the job was having young girls try and “mount” him whenever he, as a figure of authority in the facility, would try and mediate conflicts or just try and talk to them. “[Some of them] were so screwed up mentally that they responded to just me being a guy and trying to talk to them as that they needed to have sex with me.” I didn’t ask, but I think it was safe to assume that he, you know, didn’t actually rape them (as it would’ve been rape given the ages of the girls he was working with) because he knew that he had a job to do and when someone isn’t in a right state of mind, you do your job, you act professionally and you resolve the situation.

So let’s say you’re a bunch of male police officers behind a desk one night and a woman who is very drunk is waiting for a ride/taxi. She starts talking to you and coming up to your desk and crawling around, putting up her leg on the table and saying god knows what. I don’t care what she says or how she’s acting (unless she said something to the effect of “i’m going to kill you all”) you ask her to sit down and maybe you get her some coffee. You’re a police officer. Half of your job entails dealing with drunk people of some sort. If you’ve got a lot of spare time on your hands and if you want to be real nice, you drive the woman home yourself in your squad car. What you don’t do, is what these assholes did:

What’s especially infuriating is when the reporter asks, “Was she in any way a victim” and the police rep says “she participated…so…” Which is a “no.” Which is a nice way of saying “She started it, she deserved it, she’s the tease.”

Really? She wasn’t groped? They didn’t lift up her skirt? They didn’t’ act like police officers should’ve acted? They didn’t take pictures of her and send it to all of their friends? Who knows where those pictures are on the internet? They didn’t just sit there and let the whole thing play out for however long it did instead of getting her some coffee and driving her home?

There are only a few places in this world where 100% we are supposed to feel completely safe. And there are only a few people with whom we are 100% supposed to feel safe with and trust. The police fall into that category and a police station also fall into that category as well. I can hear the asshole YouTube and Digg critics now, “Dude…I so would’ve tapped that!” suggesting of course that the police are somehow virtuous for not gang-raping her right there in her intoxicated state. It reminds me of how ridiculous it is when we applaud men for NOT being batterers or NOT being rapists. Is that how bad things have gotten? We’ve come to the point of thanking the police for only “coppin a feel” a little bit and snapping a few pics when it could’ve gotten a whole lot worse should she have stumbled somewhere else? I don’t buy it.

I’ve always liked Steve Nash and this just adds to reasons to root for him:

“Nash invests in women’s soccer league” - “I’m really excited to play a role in bringing professional soccer to North America,” Nash said. “As a father of twin girls, I’m especially pleased to help young women around the world realize their dreams of being a pro soccer player can indeed come true.”

And also because it gets really, really old reading about athletes investing in restaurants and nightclubs over and over.