Female Role Models in Baseball + Why We Need More

I had a really well thought out post for the "F Word" linkup today, until San Antonio hired the NBA's first female assistant coach. At first, I was so pumped. They hired the first female assistant coach in the NBA EVER! Then I thought, wait. It's 2014. How are we just now hiring the first ever female assistant coach? Right now there's a really big push to get more young girls interested in the STEM programs [science, technology, engineering, mathematics], but it makes me questions why more young girls aren't being encouraged to pursue a career in sports.

The reaction when I tell people "I have a degree in Sport Management and I work in baseball" is always one of two things: oh that's cool, I bet it's all fun all the time! or oh so you can marry one of those ballplayers right? First of all, how is the latter an appropriate way to respond to someone's career choice? Do you ask female lawyers if they're only in it to marry a lawyer? Contrary to popular belief, I did not accrue a heap of student loan debt to try to marry a baseball player.

When I first realized I wanted to pursue a career in baseball, I started to do my research on women in the field. The MiLB team I worked for at the time had a pretty evenly balanced male to female staff, so I assumed that's how it would be everywhere. I was not correct. There has never been a female GM in Major League Baseball. Kim Ng  is an absolute rock star, but she has been interviewed for no less than four GM positions, twice for the Padres. I recently read an outstanding article about her on Fox Sports -- it discusses how she's unfazed by these situations and she's just going to continue doing her job and doing it well.

She goes on to say that she doesn't mean to be a role model, but that's exactly the reason she's such a great one. She doesn't do her job to break the glass ceiling, she does her job because she's passionate about it. She doesn't let anyone tell her she can't do something because she's a girl. That's why I look up to her and strive to do my job well regardless of the "boys club" mentality.

Fortunately, MiLB isn't facing the "never been a female GM" issue, and I had the pleasure of working with one of the current female GM's my first post-grad year in baseball. There's even a Women In Baseball seminar held every year at the Baseball Winter Meetings.

I believe we need more female role models in professional sports so that young girls know that they can thrive in the sports industry just as well as any man. I have been lucky enough to work with and for countless strong women in this industry and I will continually strive to become one of those strong women.

Hopefully Becky Hammon will be the first of many females to earn higher leadership roles in I suppose this does fall into the "feminism" category, so I'm going to go ahead and link up. Who is your career role model? Check out the Women in Sports Foundation for even more strong women.

11 comments :

  1. Such an interesting post! I love hearing about your perspective, especially because I don't personally know any women who work in professional sports. When I was watching the World Cup this summer I got really fired up about the lack of female representation in soccer as well. Why were there no female commentators? No female coaches? No female refs? The last one in particular pissed me off especially when the established male refs were making such terrible calls.

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  2. YES. "It's 2014. How are we just now hiring the first ever female assistant coach?" I remember my boyfriend telling me some news a while ago about the "first female ____" and we were like, what? This is seriously the first time? Ugh. Haha, don't you love when people respond to your career choices with jokes about marriage? This post was really interesting to me since I happen to be the kind of person who doesn't follow sports. You're right - we hear so much about women in STEM but not about women in other fields. We hear so much about how important role models are, but I feel like (but who knows for sure) young women these days aren't getting exposed to real women doing real things in their awesome ways.

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  3. Very interesting and focused post about feminism and sports! Every time that I get excited about the thought of a women being chosen for a certain role, I slap myself and realise that this is the 21st century, how is it possible that it hasn't happened before? But at least it's better late than never and when I heard the news about Becky Hammon I was proud that they probably didn't see her as a 'girl' but simply a valued and talented person who could bring all that she's got to their team! I mean that's how society should be right? We're all humans and that's all that matter.

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    1. I wish that, with it being the 21st century, there was a way to interview someone and not know their gender or ethnicity. Just know their skills and personality -- that's all that should matter! If I can do the job as a woman, I should be given just as much chance as a man and the other way around. I don't want to get a specific job just because I'm a woman. It's crazy. I hope she kicks ass + takes names!

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  4. This is a fantastic post, Kasey, and I'm so glad you decided to link up! One of the things which often gets overlooked in feminism is female involvement in sports. It's so so important, because it's been proven time and again how beneficial sports are, and yet it's still considered to be a "male" thing that women aren't really supposed to have interest in.

    The reaction when I tell people "I have a degree in Sport Management and I work in baseball" is always one of two things: oh that's cool, I bet it's all fun all the time! or oh so you can marry one of those ballplayers right? First of all, how is the latter an appropriate way to respond to someone's career choice? Do you ask female lawyers if they're only in it to marry a lawyer? Contrary to popular belief, I did not accrue a heap of student loan debt to try to marry a baseball player
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    Everything about that is so degrading, as though you'e made a MAJOR life choice in order to find a man? And in the process accrued THOUSANDS of dollars in debt that it's going to take you years to pay off. As though women are still expected to have dedicated their lives to finding and securing a husband. There is absolutely no way a man in a female dominated field such as nursing would be told "ohh I bet you do that you find a wife." It's ridiculous!

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    1. I'm glad you liked it! I've taken to just laughing off the question about whether or not I did it to 'catch' a husband as it's usually put [side note, 'catching' a husband sounds like a bad idea.... like catching the flu or something.] I catch a lot of flack for putting my career before "finding a family" too. I genuinely don't understand why.

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  5. Female role models in any field, especially male-dominated ones are sadly lacking, as you've astutely pointed out, in 2014. Sometimes it doesn't feel like we are IN 2014, the 21st century at all. As I've been reading these feminist posts, I can't help but think about other countries, not just the US, and their struggles for equality, as well. We seem to have hit upon another Dark Age.

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    1. I don't know what happened, I've been jamming to some older music lately in the office + realizing that we've kind of taken a step back, like Janis Joplin, Alanis Morisette, and countless others wrote about heartbreak + no one talks shit about them like they do Taylor Swift or any other woman in the music industry today. I wish I knew what to do to fix the lack of female role models. We need a woman president, that's for sure.

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  6. Hey Kasey! I really enjoy your post! Id like to nominate you for a Liebster Award- if you have time- please hop on over and see what it is all about- thank you for being so kind in all your comments!

    http://mtmimr.blogspot.com/2014/08/liebster-award-thanks-sierra.html

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  7. I absolutely love this post! I couldn't agree more with you. I worked in the front office for a team before. jLiterally everyone thought I was there to get a husband. No, I actaully enjoy sports. What team do you work for?

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  8. I remember dating a soccer playing guy in high school (he was pretty much a jerk) who said that women's soccer wasn't really a sport. He played soccer, and said that women playing the same game weren't really playing a sport! I mean, seriously?!?! He actually felt that any sport a woman played was not actually a sport.
    I'd be willing to bed that it's male chauvinist opinions like these that keep women out of careers in sports.

    But, this is a great post, and I completely agree with you!

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