For the Love of Women

The Schloss-Blog is talking about women today.

No, not the kind you can't live with and can't live without.

This is about the ones who have been mistreated, disrespected, are unheard and virtually unseen.

They're starting to catch up, but they've still got quite a ways to go.

***

The ones who got me started were the members of golf's Solheim Cup teams, both American and European.

Talented. Graceful and gracious. On national TV. What's not to like, right?

The telecasts were an abomination, disrespectful and degrading.

Final round, with Cup-determining singles matches on the course, on cable only.

Whatsa' matter, NBC - aren't the women important enough for the big-boy network?

And the technology employed, or not employed, spoke volumes - where was the Top Tracer tech to track the shots, so critical to viewer following and enjoyment of the games?

Oh yeah, they used it on the men's that weekend, for the Fed Ex individual title.

You can bet they'll use it on the Ryder Cup next weekend, when the men's American and European teams compete for their version of the Solheim Cup.

So, apparently, NBC dedicated neither the money nor the technology to cover the comparable women's event that they have and will for the men's.

And all I want to know is, why?

***

Then came the four tumblers.

According to the well-known faces and voices of Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman, the only thing worse than the sexual abuse committed against them was the disrespect exercised by the FBI agents who interviewed them about it.

The distinguished quartet of Olympic medal-winning gymnasts not only detailed the sexual abuse, the same as they did to the investigator, but relayed how, after hours of interviews, the FBI agents still managed to downplay the severity of the incidents in their reports.

And how aghast they were at that. And insulted. And left feeling treated like their complaints were being minimized, as if they never happened.

Yes, we all know Larry Nassar was eventually convicted, but what about the agents who interviewed the four medal-winners? 

Even more, the Schloss-Blog wants to know, was anybody really listening? No one on the panel of senators offered a solution or a path to determine what happened and why. Nor did they offer to put in place procedures that would ensure that kind of treatment never happened again to prospective gymnastics stars.

No one.

***

The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team has had unparalleled success. World Cups. Olympic medals.

The U.S. Men's team, by contrast, hasn't qualified for either event since 2014.

But always got paid a lot more than the women. A lot more.

Not anymore, apparently. Perhaps.

The United States Soccer Federation (USSF) has come back with contract offers to both teams that amount to the same amount of money.

Or do they?

The men, apparently, will stay on a pay-for-play structure. The women, on the other hand, were offered a package structured differently: more guaranteed money; health care; pay for players in the National Women's Soccer League; and maternity and pregnancy leave. It also includes injury pay, a  401 (k) plan and severance.

Does that equalize everything? Some of the women are calling the contract a publicity stunt in the wake of their lawsuit against the USSF to balance the teams' compensation packages.

Either way, the women have been underpaid and disrespected all along, including and ever since Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey, leaving her exposed on national TV in her sports bra, after her game-winning penalty kick won the 1999 World Cup.

Still waiting for the men's team to reach a sports-bra moment.

***

Enough is enough. Women need to be treated fairly. Pay has to be equalized for the same jobs, and not just on the field. The Milwaukee Bucks just named a woman, Lisa Byington, to replace the retiring Jim Paschke as their play-by-play announcer going forward, the NBA's first. Will she be paid the same though as he was?

And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earn 82 cents on the dollar for the same jobs men do in the United States today.

That's not right.

And in Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down a school district's attempt to reinstate a transgender bathroom law rather than let a transgender student use the boy's restroom.

Maybe there's hope in America.

And then again, there's the Texas abortion law.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show Sunday night, which precedes the Night Cat, John Kirk DeRitis.