However, I appreciate not everyone feels this way, and so I did not receive this morning's news that England wicket keeper Sarah Taylor was under consideration by Sussex County Cricket Club to be selected as the first woman to play alongside men in professional cricket with any other emotion than a mild sensation of 'Well good for her'.
What I found hard to fathom, though, was the commentary which followed.
As with many such features, two speakers were on air to give point and counterpoint - Mark Alleyne, Taylor's current coach at Marylebone Cricket Club, and Baroness Rachael Heyhoe Flint, described by Wikipedia as "probably the best known female cricketer in England".
Alleyne, who was addressed first, described the prospect of Taylor's possible selection as "exciting" and noted that, while the pace of the game would be quicker and the ball slightly bigger, no other major differences existed for a woman playing alongside and in opposition to teams of males.
Flint, in contrast, has 'concerns'. She used to play cricket with men non-professionally, you see, so she knows the possible issues Taylor and other women may face. According to her, those issues are:
1. Taylor may not have gone far enough in Women's cricket, and might therefore cause "dilemmas in the minds of selectors in Sussex, that they would be selecting a girl in preference to a young lad who's come through the academy system".
2. Sarah may cause "problems" for the men on the other team, because if she was batting and they were bowling, she might get hurt.
Let me just reiterate these points. The problems that may caused by a sportswoman being selected to play on a second-level sports team with some sportsmen are that the people who pick sports players for a living might pick her wrong, and/or that she might receive a sporting injury in the course of playing her sport.
Sorry, but I was utterly fucking gobsmacked by this.
I know next to nothing about Sarah Taylor, but here are some assumptions I feel fairly confident in making:
- That she's 'quite good' at cricket.
- That team selectors wouldn't consider her for selection unless they were reasonably sure she wouldn't make a dithering ladymess of it.
- That, having presumably played cricket for a number of years, she may be familiar with possibility of wear'n'tear or even, God forbid, outright injury sustained in the course of playing a competitive sport with a very hard ball.
- That people who play sport competitively like to win, and are not more likely to throw the ball, like, rilly hard at an oponent based on their gender.
Judging from his tone as he responded to her comments, Alleyne was fairly underwhelmed by Heyhoe Flint's viewpoint. While acknowledging that physical intimidation of the batsman plays a role in the game of cricket, he didn't seem to see gender as an issue in this instance. "I wouldn't see it any differently. I would see a batsman down the other end who is looking to take runs off me, and my job is to get them out, primarily, and that's what cricket is about," he pointed out calmly, sort of like a man who knows how sport works.
I am a firm believer in getting the best person for the job, regardless of who or what they are. If there was some grounded suggestion that positive discrimination was truly at work here and Taylor was a player being selected for having boobs not batsmanship, I wouldn't be complaining about this commentary. But Heyhoe Flint's stance did not seem to be based on anything concrete. Certainly she has experience of what it is like to be a female cricketer, and perhaps she has encountered nastiness along the way that fills her with genuine trepidation on Taylor's behalf.
But the division of her concern between the opposing team (who could ostensibly become confused about the object of the game when confronted by an ickle woman with a bat in her hand) and Taylor's physical wellbeing doesn't ring true. These felt less like genuine concerns and more like... someone grasping desperately to bring up needless obstacles. Which is great, because y'know, women have it so easy nowadays that when one makes a breakthrough and, seemingly on merit, becomes the first woman to do X, it's really helpful for other women to be wilfully obstructive and undermine the validity of that achievement.
Why would Rachael Heyhoe Flint baulk from giving her unreserved support to someone who is basically carrying on the legacy of accomplishments she herself won in the 60s and 70s? I have no idea. Please do take a minute to try and imagine how far my eyes goggled, though, when RHF summed up her time on air by stating: "I think, stick to the practising, get as far as she can, but don't alienate the opposition by appearing in matches that are crucial."
Yeah, you heard me - don't 'alienate' the opposition by having the temerity to not be a male cricketer, but some other kind of cricketer, when it's really important. Or, if I may paraphrase again, "You're doing really well at the cricket, sweetheart - almost as good as a man! Too bad you're such an incredibly weird and alien lifeform that you can't play in 'proper' games against truly skilled players, because they'd be all in a tizzy trying to figure out how to actually play against you! Never mind - you can still play, just not in any games of perceived significance. Those are for the Men. You know - the REAL players."
Players, umpires and spectators alike have been killed by cricket balls. Many more people than would freely admit it harbour a deeply held belief that women are less skilled, less strong and less good than men at all sorts of things - not just cricket. In some cases they are right - I personally scream if a ball is thrown near me and have the hand-eye co-ordination of a hot plateful of delicious tagliatelle. But there exist those women who are every bit as capable of playing sports proficiently - maybe even excellently - against men as I am of enjoying a hot plateful of delicious tagliatelle. Assuming Taylor is good enough for the team - and as I mentioned before, I am assuming that, based on the opinions seemingly held of her abilities by people who play, coach and organise cricket for a living - her gender shouldn't matter other than as a small but positive watershed for equality of opportunity. She should be congratulated, not patronised - and maybe the "best known female cricketer in England" needs to reconsider her disappointingly low opinions of her fellow sportswomen - and men.
I don't like cricket either, but I loved this post. I reckon Heyhoe Flint should listen to Under The Pink and reflect on female solidarity. Providing she can navigate her CD player and avoid being injured by it, you know, because she's a woman-folk and all. Her words, not mine.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the ranting.