The Gender Game: The Perspective of a Female Sportswriter

How best to introduce myself to my new audience here at Bleacher Report?

I wasn't sure, but then I figured we may as well start with the part many people might notice first: I'm a woman.

I've been a journalist for a decade now, six years of which have been spent covering sports. Over that period, my gender has come up many times.

It raises a question: Am I a woman who is a sportswriter, or a sportswriter who is a woman?

The mere swap of those two words means two vastly different things and the issue is incredibly charged. I can't speak for every female, but I can at least shed some light on the subject through my own experiences.

There's a running joke in my family that my father wanted a son to share his love of baseball with and that he got one. For as long as I can remember, I've been a sports fan and athlete, involved in everything from baseball to arena football.

I was very blessed to grow up playing those sports with people that didn't see my gender.

I'll always remember being turned on to street hockey when I was still in middle school by a high schooler who lived up the street from me. He spent hours teaching me how to goaltend and never cared that I was a girl.

I began to play the sport every other day with guys that were older, bigger and stronger than me; we talked about my game, but never about my gender.

I carried that attitude throughout my high school and collegiate athletic career, through my love of various sports and later on when I became a sportswriter.

I don't see gender. I just see the game.

I was also lucky enough to compete and later work with people who felt the same way, because I have almost always been treated with respect by my colleagues, teammates, bosses and interview subjects.

I am aware, however, that there are people with differing opinions out there. One only has to read comments left to articles on various sports websites to see that there are men who still voice sexual and/or sexist thoughts when it comes to women in sports, be it in the game or on the sidelines.

For example, one censored comment to a FOX Sports follow-up story on the Ines Sainz debacle from October reads, in part, "Just do the Playboy set and get it over with."

Crude? Yes. I'm not defending that kind of speech or behavior in any way.

Yet, here's part of the discussion that I think honestly gets overlooked: some women don't help themselves in that department either and they need to be held accountable for their part in the equation.

There are a lot of great, classy female sportswriters and anchors out there. There's a whole host of them who inspired me, such as Linda Cohn, Robin Roberts, Gayle Gardner and Jackie MacMullan. I respect them deeply, in part because none of them have ever tried to use their gender to get attention or get ahead.

Part of the reason the Sainz story rubbed me the wrong way was not just the response to it, but how she presented herself to begin with. A female sportswriter can't show up on her network's website in a skimpy bikini and then complain about how she's looked at by men.

I'm not saying that excuses anyone else, but putting herself out as eye candy is in direct contrast to being seen and treated as a media professional.

Speaking for myself, I always turn up to work in a suit, but then again, I don't even own anything low-cut to begin with. There's a certain image that I want to put out, because there's a certain way I want to be seen and aside from a few odd looks sometimes, I've never been treated badly at any event I've covered.

Even the drunk guy who got into a fight with me at a San Diego Padres game last season didn't pull the gender card. I'm very blessed that way, but I also don't bring up my gender. It doesn't come to mind at all when I've got a job to do.

The sports world, at least for now and the foreseeable future, is male-dominated. I knew that when I decided I was going to be a part of it. It's up to me to behave appropriately, and that's all I can control.

So, hello, Bleacher Report. I'm a sportswriter who just happens to be a woman. And I wouldn't want it any other way.