On page 83 of the August 25, 2008 New Yorker, in the article “The Fab Fortnight,” Nancy Franklin writes:
[Al] Trautwig, remarking on the ankle injury that kept a member of the American women’s team from competing in anything but the uneven bars, said, “It’s one of the biggest days of her life. . . . It’s like having a tear in your wedding dress right before you walk down the aisle.” I don’t know. I think it’s probably more like having an ankle injury that keeps you from competing in anything but the uneven bars.
It’s disappointing when the media distracts focus from women’s amazing talents and abilities and achievements and diminishes their life goals to marriage and children. Franklin also points out the inordinate amount of time that NBC spent discussing the beach volleyball players’ marriages and plans to have children.
Good grief. Strong successful women regularly narrowly defined and/or viewed as only wife and mother.
I love that I can be married to my sweetie (though only in California, New York, Massachusetts, Canada, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, South Africa) and I adore having a child, but those attributes are certainly not my only defining moments.
excellent article – so glad you pointed it out. i would have missed it otherwise.
–”It’s disappointing when the media distracts focus from women’s amazing talents and abilities and achievements and diminishes their life goals to marriage and children. ”
well said! after the olympics this year i had been wondering whether it’s a related phenomenon that the (US) women’s softball team can win a silver medal and it can still be called “failure” — and aarg, why do i have to call it “women’s” softball team? i know they were up there and expected to be number 1 and all that — but the lens is focused a bit too harshly, or at least distorts, it seems to me.
Hi, Leanne – Did you see Nancy Franklin’s New Yorker article of May 24, 2010? I’m not too thrilled with Nancy’s focus on Chelsea’s “attractiveness.” I write about growing up ugly and how the world is free to comment on someone who is attractive, but being ugly is something that must be silenced. I don’t want to be silenced any longer. Take care, BeyondBeautifulBabe
http://www.beyondbeautifulbabe.com