I’m a tall woman at 6-foot-2, and almost everywhere I go, people notice me. The first question is: Do you play basketball? When they find out I’m a professional player, some are just impressed and want to know more about the life of a pro athlete. Most of the men I talk to, though, ask me to play one-on-one.
If you’ve ever had that impulse, let me stop you here. I’m not going to play you one-on-one. I’m never going to play you one-on-one. I have been playing basketball my entire life, and for just as long I have been challenged by men who think they are better than me. I had to prove my skill in middle school against the boys who thought girls couldn’t play basketball. I had to prove my skill in high school when the guys’ egos were hurt because the girls basketball team was more successful and more popular than theirs. I had to prove it in college when grown men started challenging me to one-on-one games because there was no way this college woman was better than they were. Time and time again, I have trounced men — far too many to count. Now I have nothing to prove.
.. I get it: Sometimes men are just flirting. But it’s easy to tell when someone is serious. Flirtation can be subtle and playful: “When are you gonna let me play you one-on-one?” Men with insecurities sound more braggartly: “I bet I would smoke you on the court.”
.. There’s something about basketball that activates men’s egos. It’s almost as if they still consider it a sport that women should not be playing.
.. I’ve never heard of a person saying they’re a real estate agent, only to have someone snap back, “I bet I would sell more houses than you.” But I guarantee that every single woman who has played high-level basketball has been told by multiple men that she’d lose to them on the court.
.. I am a competitor, and when I was younger, I lived for those challenges. Whenever a man called me out, I took it upon myself to embarrass him if a court was available (preferably with a crowd present). Throughout high school, college and even very early in my pro years, I handed out losses to countless overconfident men.
.. But the same story played out each time. It went a lot like the scene in the film “Love and Basketball” when Quincy meets Monica, tells her “Girls can’t play no ball” and proceeds to play her two-on-two with his friends. As he’s about to lose, he pushes her, and she falls into a sprinkler, cutting her face. Similarly, when the men I played realized they’d underestimated me, the hacking would start. They would elbow, undercut and even throw me into the pads under the basket — passing out real bruises to match their bruised egos. There was no way they were letting this woman beat them in front of their friends. I took the hits, made my shots, and walked away battered but victorious.
.. But I’ve also had nine surgeries, seven on my knees and one on each hip. I have my livelihood to look after. This isn’t just a game for me anymore; it’s my career.
.. Why risk what I do for a living to prove myself to a rough-and-tumble nobody, the kind of guy who has probably never played real basketball? Inevitably, those are the guys who challenge me. Collegiate and professional male basketball players have too much respect for us to be jerks; they understand the game at the highest level and know that we’re extremely talented and that what we do is remarkable. Instead, it’s always the men with the broken hoop dreams who didn’t have the grades or the talent to play in college.
The men who “dominate” in their 25-and-up rec league at the gym. The ones who know absolutely nothing about playing basketball at this level but are still strong enough to rough me up when things go south.
.. I already know I’m a good player. And no, I won’t play you to prove it.
The Bible’s #MeToo Problem
Dr. Trible labels such stories “texts of terror.”
.. When we remember that a third or more of the women sitting in our pews have been sexually assaulted and the majority of them have been sexually harassed, the absence of biblical women’s stories is telling.
.. almost half of transgender individuals report being sexually assaulted.
.. The muting of the #MeToos of the Bible is a direct reflection of the culture of silence at work in our congregations. An assumption is woven into our sacred texts: that the experiences of women don’t matter. If religious communities fail to tell stories that reflect the experience of the women of our past, we will inevitably fail to address the sense of entitlement, assumption of superiority and lust for punishment carried through those stories and inherited by men of the present.
.. Statistically, perpetrators do not lurk in shadowy corners, waiting to pounce. They are men who have a hint of power, or wish they did, who understand women in much the same way so many of the stories of the Bible do — as objects to be penetrated, traded, bought or sold. They are sitting in our pews, or, sometimes, standing in our pulpits.
.. Abuse takes place when one person fails to see the humanity of another, taking what he wants in order to experience control, disordered intimacy or power. It is the symptom of an illness that is fundamentally spiritual: a kind of narcissism that allows him to focus only on sating his need, blind to the pain of the victim. This same narcissism caused the editors of our sacred stories to limit the rape of Dinah to only nine words in a book of thousands.
.. abusive narcissism must be unraveled through a transformation of heart and mind.
.. If I were preaching the story of Dinah, I might simply ask, “How do you think she felt?” It’s a question that some men have never considered. Though some abusers are beyond the reach of compassion, I have in my work as a pastor witnessed the ways hearts can open when someone tells a story. It is empathy, not regulations, that will create a different vision for masculinity in our nation, rooted in love instead of dominance.
.. But transformation happens only in the hard light of truth.
Power’s Role In Sexual Harassment
Psychologists say high-powered men accused of abusing women have different motivations but often share some personality traits
A series of sexual-harassment accusations against well-known business leaders, celebrities and politicians has left people wondering why some successful men behave this way.
In many cases, power seems to play a role. Certainly, the majority of influential men treat women appropriately. But what is going on from a psychological standpoint with the ones who don’t? Research shows they have different motivations yet typically share specific personality traits. Their power amplifies proclivities they already have.
.. Power can be isolating. Psychologists say that people in power sometimes feel removed from others, as if they aren’t subject to the same rules.
.. “Powerful people often surround themselves with people who enable them and who won’t challenge them,”.. power can create opportunities for men to mistreat women. However, those who choose to exploit such opportunities are sometimes men who felt powerless in the past and then suddenly received an increase in power... Power also can make people feel less inhibited.. “There are parallels to alcohol,” she says. “Both make you less constrained by social norms.”.. For many people this is positive. People who are compassionate before they have power, for example, tend to be more compassionate afterwards, the research shows. They’re the good bosses... those who harass or assault women often have a combination of two distinct sets of personality characteristics.. Psychologists call these “hostile masculinity” and “impersonal sexuality.”.. Men with “hostile masculinity” find power over women to be a sexual turn-on. They feel anger at being rejected by a woman. This is something that researchers believe probably happened to them a lot when they were young. They justify their aggression and are often narcissists... Men with “impersonal sexuality” prefer sex without intimacy or a close connection, which often leads them to seek promiscuous sex or multiple partners... Men who harass or assault women also tend to have sexist attitudes, such as an opposition to gender equality or a favoring of traditional roles for women
.. “It’s not automatic; it’s not that power corrupts,” says UCLA’s Dr. Malamuth. “It’s a certain type of man who uses his power in this way.”
.. men who are aggressive toward women are more likely to look for or create a situation where women are more vulnerable. So it’s no coincidence that they are the ones who seek out power—especially over young, beautiful women, who were the ones who tended to reject them when they were young.
.. “The bad behavior is a defense against being powerless,”