This made me so annoyed that I'm actually posting twice today.
Lady runners: aren't they cute?
Yesterday, while watching the Boston Marathon on the computer and refreshing twitter constantly for updates, I saw the most amazing twitter dialogue float past my feed. And by amazing, I mean sexist and unprofessional:
The women's lead described as "girl on girl action"? Women as emitting a "banshee wail"? Now, that's tacky. Which is probably why he was called out on it:
How did he answer that? Lawn bowling. He makes a sexist comment, he's called out on it, so he doubles down and trivializes women's running, comparing it to lawn bowling. (Nothing against lawn bowling, but he was obviously choosing an obscure and less mainstream sport to mock.)
Sara followed up, for what it's worth:
Still, he wasn't done! Not only did he later call Sara a dumbass (I won't bother linking that tweet; it was in response to someone else), but he was on FIRE with the commentary:
But in case you didn't laugh out loud at the idea of a water station in the heat turning into his fantasy of spring break, he wants you to know that it was funny:
Jon, you might have been able to find a woman or two who responded to your tweets favorably, but that doesn't make what you said okay. Your comment was rude, but you could have redeemed yourself by handling Sara's criticism well. Instead you continued on the same, tired, 1950s "women: aren't they cute?" vein. (And I'm not mentioning that he wasn't called sexist - his comments are. Nope, and I'm also not following that up with some sort of snide commenting about his reading comprehension skills.)
This is a man whose twitter bio says that he is a freelance writer for Runner's World, Running Times, Competitor, and RunBlogRun. You'd think that through all of his professional career, writing on running, that he would have maybe learned how to interact with women.
You can tell him what you think: @JonGugala
COCKINESS: there's a reason the first syllable is "cock."
Edited on the 18th to add: I shouldn't have insinuated that I was calling Gugala a crude term in the last line of this post. It was a cheap shot, and I apologize to him (and my readers) for it. This post has resonated with quite a few people and has ballooned well beyond my usual readership, which consists primarily of a handful of friends, family, and other running bloggers. I typically write for a smaller audience, and I didn't mean to offend anyone.
Edited (again) to add a link to the update.
Lady runners: aren't they cute?
Yesterday, while watching the Boston Marathon on the computer and refreshing twitter constantly for updates, I saw the most amazing twitter dialogue float past my feed. And by amazing, I mean sexist and unprofessional:
The women's lead described as "girl on girl action"? Women as emitting a "banshee wail"? Now, that's tacky. Which is probably why he was called out on it:
How did he answer that? Lawn bowling. He makes a sexist comment, he's called out on it, so he doubles down and trivializes women's running, comparing it to lawn bowling. (Nothing against lawn bowling, but he was obviously choosing an obscure and less mainstream sport to mock.)
Sara followed up, for what it's worth:
Still, he wasn't done! Not only did he later call Sara a dumbass (I won't bother linking that tweet; it was in response to someone else), but he was on FIRE with the commentary:
But in case you didn't laugh out loud at the idea of a water station in the heat turning into his fantasy of spring break, he wants you to know that it was funny:
Jon, you might have been able to find a woman or two who responded to your tweets favorably, but that doesn't make what you said okay. Your comment was rude, but you could have redeemed yourself by handling Sara's criticism well. Instead you continued on the same, tired, 1950s "women: aren't they cute?" vein. (And I'm not mentioning that he wasn't called sexist - his comments are. Nope, and I'm also not following that up with some sort of snide commenting about his reading comprehension skills.)
This is a man whose twitter bio says that he is a freelance writer for Runner's World, Running Times, Competitor, and RunBlogRun. You'd think that through all of his professional career, writing on running, that he would have maybe learned how to interact with women.
You can tell him what you think: @JonGugala
COCKINESS: there's a reason the first syllable is "cock."
Edited on the 18th to add: I shouldn't have insinuated that I was calling Gugala a crude term in the last line of this post. It was a cheap shot, and I apologize to him (and my readers) for it. This post has resonated with quite a few people and has ballooned well beyond my usual readership, which consists primarily of a handful of friends, family, and other running bloggers. I typically write for a smaller audience, and I didn't mean to offend anyone.
Edited (again) to add a link to the update.
Sara was a lot nicer than I would have been.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Her professionalism is amazing - as is his lack of it. It's one thing to tweet dumb shit from your personal twitter account, but it's another to tweet dumb shit (and then not apologize when someone is offended) when you're billing yourself as a representative of several major publications.
DeleteBelittling others is a sure sign of insecurity. So pathetic. I hope RW, RT, and Competitor DROP HIM LIKE A BAD HABIT.
ReplyDeleteUghh, I can't believe that on the 40th anniversary of women's official acceptance into the Boston Marathon, journalist are still covering to the race in such sexist ways. GROSS.
ReplyDeleteYES YES YES. It's so disappointing to me that he thinks that his treatment of this whole thing is okay. He's really not backing down. At least his more recent tweets (pretty much all ad hominem attacks on whomever is tweeting) show that it's his personality, and hopefully it's not endemic to the way track and field is covered in general.
DeleteUGH, I can't believe that on the 40th anniversary of women's acceptance into the Boston Marathon, journalists are still covering the race in such a sexist way. GROSS.
ReplyDeletehey. Just came over after seeing some of the tweets. What a jackass. Hopefully RW will drop him. Huge numbers of women runners around- probably want to read someone who isn't a frat guy loser.
ReplyDeleteAGREED, and thank you for reading it. I just can't get over the fact that his entire argument seems to be, "It's only in your head." I'm trying not to engage with him - I'll let his tweets speak for themselves. But yeah. Yeah.
DeleteSoooo...I get it. On a PC scale, he fails. But to be fair, the guy was tossing similar "witticisms" at the dudes. I have a pretty high tolerance for tongue-in-cheekness, and I think the comments are worth letting slide.
ReplyDeleteBut - but!!! - the twitter aftermath is jaw-dropping. I'm pretty surprised that a professional, tweeting from a professional account, would engage in the dick-measuring, aggro back-and-forth that he has. That, to me, is more telling than the original tweets.
Also? Lashing out at bloggers? C'mon, dude, the only thing separating a blogger from a freelancer is a tiny paycheck and more complicated taxes.
That's EXACTLY it. I completely agree. If he'd conceded that he was sorry, ever, or EVEN if he'd said, "I'm poking fun at BOTH genders," or EVEN EVEN if he'd JUST POSTED FROM A PERSONAL (not professional) account, all would have been well. Instead he's launched into these bizarre attacks and defended himself. I'm sorry, but the whole "just because you perceive it as sexism doesn't mean it is" argument is weak. So is retweeting that one woman who said that he should "slap" people who call him sexist.
DeleteAt this point I just think it's funny, and sad. He lost me completely when he said something about women sometimes having sex. In fact, I have it as often as I can. And I like it. But I don't conflate sexism with sex, nor did anyone (but him) mention burkas. I also like raunchy humor that pushes the envelope. But I don't like him. Ah, well. He's just completely off the rails at this point.
Sexist comments are never funny to me. They just aren't. I know someone who is constantly making them and won't stop and reading this reminded me of him. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteTracy, I linked to your blog trying to get more info on what went down... You had me right to what you said about cockiness. It was a little "pot calling kettle black" IMHO.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, and I apologize. It was absolutely a cheap shot. I would take it down, except more than a thousand people have seen the blog already (that's roughly ten times my usual daily readership), and I don't like editing things after the fact. I'll add a note.
DeleteTracy, thanks for the great write-up. So frustrated that people still think acting like a dick is okay (for the record, I think you were well within your rights to call him a cock ;) ).
ReplyDeleteGirl on girl is a reference to lesbianism at Wellesley college. Banshees' wailing refers to the shrieking wall of cheering students at Wellesley. The wet T shirt comment was made because volunteers spilled water on the runners.
ReplyDeleteI think we all "got it," at least those of us who were following the race, anyway. The issue is whether or not we thought it was appropriate. Like I said above, I think his tweets were borderline inappropriate and not very funny - but the way he responded to the whole thing showed it as very very very poor form.
DeleteAnd we may never know, but I kind of suspect that his reference to GOGA was probably because of the collision when the runners hit the volunteers.
Delete