Super Bowl 2012: Brandon Jacobs on Gisele Bundchen Represents Sexism in the NFL

I’m glad to be the first one to tell Brandon Jacobs that his comments on Gisele Bundchen were blatantly sexist and inherently inappropriate.

After Sunday’s Super Bowl loss, footage of Gisele Bundchen, wife of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, surfaced online. In the video, Gisele is shown walking out of the stadium in Indianapolis, being visibly heckled by fans about her husband’s loss. After arriving at the elevator, Gisele begins to let her guard down and mumbles out a short fit of frustration. Once a website like “The Insider” got a hold of this footage, it spread across the Internet and Boston-based sports bloggers like a wildfire. When New York Giants tailback Brandon Jacobs saw the clip of Brady’s wife, he let loose a cannon of sexism all too common in sports culture.

As reactions begin to come in to Brandon Jacobs’s comments, allow me to be among the first to demerit the credibility of his frustrations on one giant account of sexism and intolerance.

“She just needs to be continue to be cute,” said Jacobs, “and shut up.”

Brandon Jacobs’ comments represent a general mood of inequality and prejudice all too prevalent in contemporary society. As some try to work towards a world of more fair opportunity, there within exists another of privilege and patriarchal hierarchy.

Comments and phrases like “sit down and shut up” or “do not speak when spoken to” speak towards a subservient relationship between the more dominant male stereotype with and the secondary female. While common practice in many parts of the country, the quote from Brandon Jacobs is nothing short of unacceptable and a thoroughly poor picture of our society.

What Gisele experienced on Sunday was natural. In a foreign town, dozens of fans appeared to be yelling at Gisele. “Eli Manning owns your husband!” and “Eli Manning rules” were clearly heard shouted in her direction, as she was able to walk by while still hanging onto the vague glimpses of her smile.

Likely clutching her teeth, Gisele eventually released the tension of the encounter with a frustrated rant about the receiver’s poor performance in the showdown.

“You have to catch the ball when you’re supposed to catch the ball," she complained in defense of her husband. Tom Brady is, after all, her husband. After her husband was being trashed and criticized and verbally attacked by a group of strangers following a highly stressful game that would prove to be one of the most important in his career, Gisele was letting out steam in a place that one would typically expect to be private: an elevator entrance.

Yet thanks to the incredible world of Twitter and social media, the idea of anything staying a secret or under the ropes is entirely foreign. Just like we’ve found videos of Rob Gronkowski dancing shirtless at a club in Indianapolis after his Super Bowl Loss, it’s but the least bit surprising to learn that an accidental fluke of a video like this one would make it big on the cyber sphere as well.

It was not Gisele’s comments that concerned me, however. Allegedly, Gisele was on the way to see her husband after the game. Brady, who was seen "staring at the floor in the Patriots locker room for over 20 minutes", could use some help. It would be the natural impulse of the wife to want to aid her husband, and help him in rationalizing the shortcoming by displacing the blame upon his teammates. In sports, you have an actual ability to do that.

No, rather my issue comes with the comments of Super Bowl Champion Brandon Jacobs.

Unlike Gisele, Jacobs was not harassed before his comments. Rather than anger and defense, Jacobs had other motivations in his mind. Instead, New York Post reporter Brian Costello relayed that Brandon Jacobs asserted that Gisele ought to “continue to be cute and shut up."

Uninitiated entirely, Jacobs tells Gisele, a woman, to simply be attractive (be something nice to look at) and not voice her opinions (that the receivers dropped too many passes).

Gisele was in private, while Jacobs took his comments public. His comments were astonishingly negative in nature, and unfairly sexist.

Sexism, which is defined by Merriam Webster as the “prejudice or discrimination based on sex, especially: discrimination against women.” The comments of Jacobs were outwardly based on Gisele’s gender, and undeniably discriminatory in nature as she was disempowered and publicly put down for defending her spouse.

What I find to be most concerning is that the general public seems to be supporting Jacobs in this exchange.

On an article featured on Bleacher Report, the writer introduced a poll and comments section to engage debate. When asked if Jacobs’ comments were over the line, a poll of over 10,000 viewers showed that 71.2% of the voters agreed that Gisele “deserved it”.

I find it hard to accept the truth that we live in an age when over 70% of an audience supports Jacobs’ demeaning comments over a wife defending her husband in a private setting.

This speaks poorly of our culture, and further, the culture of sports. The machismo and male dominance of the mainstream sports world causes a point of concern when issues like this one are introduced. Gisele, a supermodel by profession, may make a living by taking special care of her body. As an individual, however, there is more substance than being told to “shut up”.

Jacobs’ comments lacked the decency, respect and class of a professional athlete. Jacobs makes $4.4 million a year to play football. His job is to play sports for the New York Giants. He has won two Super Bowl rings, and is living the dream of Americans from across the nation.

Ideally, you would hope that someone with so much fame and exposure would know that his comments should not ever be presented in a public manner. Instead, Jacobs verbally attacked an NFL peer’s wife. She was in her husband’s place of work, and was being heckled. Perhaps Jacobs could have looked at the words of one of his more tasteful teammates.

“I mean, that is her husband,” Umenyiora said. “She is supposed to stay out of things like that, but at the end of the day that is their relationship and she has the right to say whatever she wants to.”

As a human being, Gisele was standing up for someone that she loves. It frustrates me that this is even a story. But what frustrates me even more is to see the public approval and praise of Brandon Jacobs.

As an American, Gisele is also entitled to Freedom of Speech. According to Brandon Jacobs, however, she should instead be designated to exist only to “be cute”.

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