So, I went to a basketball game yesterday. I am still trying to get my thoughts about it in order so bear with me if this turns out to be a jumble of thoughts instead of a coherent argument.
I am studying at Tulane University in New Orleans and I attended my first sports event yesterday: Tulane vs. ULM (University of Louisiana at Monroe), women’s basketball (the men played later against Georgetown but that did not interest me enough to watch).
Okay, it began with the newsletter (Green Wave) which told me that the basketball season began with this game and when it was and that in order to watch the men’s game you had better attend the women’s game – in order to get a seat. This already put a question mark over my head but I thought, well, I had better be there early to get a seat then. I did not know that it was pretty much of no consequence when you arrived and that you could get in at any point of the women’s game. Had I known that it would have annoyed me because – see what happened:
All through the women’s game people arrived. At the beginning of the women’s game there were maybe ten students in my part of the bleachers but it filled during the game. Nobody thought anything of it – but me, obviously. And many of those who came it were more interested to meet other people and greet them and talk to them than in the game.
Well, I watched the game and tried to be as little annoyed with these individuals as possible. But that did not help much because I got annoyed with other people as well. There was something I had already noticed before the game began and that was that fans do not applaud the other team, not even when the team is introduced. I thought that was rude and not very sportsmalike (on the door was a sign that read to the effect that spectators who behaved unsportsmanlike would be asked to leave). But again, that was just me. Later, whenever ULM was granted a penalty shot the Tulane band (which played very well, by the way) would try to break the concentration of the woman shooting by making noise (not with their instruments, fortunately but noise). I thought that was rude. I was actually so annoyed by it that I started cheering for both teams by the middle of the game.
Well, Tulane won by about 30 points, which was deserving since they were the better team. Still, I was a little put off by the attitudes in the bleachers. The arena filled considerable during the second period of the game and as I said some of those newcomers did not mind the women’s game at all. Those were mostly students who get free tickets to the game, paying spectators would come during the 50 minute break between games. But even that was strange to me? Why is male sport so much more valuable to most people than women’s sport? And please don’t tell me men are better! They are not. Different? Maybe, but not better.
I like basketball, I enjoyed playing in school though I guess, I was not really good at it. For me, it would be the game of choice if a ever joined a sports team. It’s fast, it’s dynamic and man, do I like women with muscles. On another note: one of my fellow students from Germany who said next to me during the game commented that one of the players looked like a guy. I looked at her and said: so what?! I wonder why people have to comment on something like that, I wonder why it is so important to keep up a bipolar gender-definition, and I wonder why they tell me that, when many times I am taken for a guy as well…
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