Thursday, October 11, 2007

Women? Sports? Power? No way.

God bless America! I have absolutely no excuse for going this long between posts, except to say that things here at work have been 100% mad, what with having to commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Month and trying to keep up with the various other management related tasks here on the j-o-b. But still, no excuses, and no more laying off the blogging--I'm done with that, I swear.

So here's the thing I've not been able to get off my mind since this weekend (which now seems eons ago): did anyone else happen to check out the 100 Most Influential People in Sports list in Business Week? I did, and I have to say I'm not sure why they even BOTHERED to use the term "people"--because 95 out of the 100 individuals listed are MEN. The top ranking woman, in fact, comes in at an astounding 67th place (the CMO of Coke), followed by Maria Sharapova at 73, Heidi Ueberroth somewhere in there, one other lady whose name I can't recall, and finishing up, at the very bottom of this list of 100, with Donna Orender, head of the WNBA.

Now, if this list is in any way accurate (and there are some pretty good reasons to think it's a pile of junk), then every sports related company in this nation is pretty much ripe for a major EEOC complaint (or ten) to be filed against them. But it's not them I'm most steamed at. That women are underrepresented in the business of sports (and business leadership in general) isn't news--but what has lit me utterly on fire is that a publication like Business Week would make ZERO effort to try to diversify this list in any way--by reaching out to unlikely candidates, or by making some kind--any kind!--of gesture that would indicate that they realize there is something seriously awry with a list that makes it seem as if women make little to no contribution to the world of sports, in business or on that proverbial field.

Total yuck, my friends. If I had a subscription, I'd cancel it for sure.

1 comment:

lizwallace said...

Why don't you send your blog post as a letter to the editor?