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Date: 10/6/2020
Last week I was scrolling on my Twitter feed toward the end of the day, catching up on the day’s news and my favorite accounts when I saw a Tweet that struck me.
I happen to follow a couple of Twitter accounts that are run by a few of the women who work for Barstool Sports. I listen to Barstool’s “Chicks in the Office” podcast, which is a pop culture podcast run by two young women who are in their early and mid 20’s. One of the women on “Chicks in the Office,” Francesca Mariano, recently started a second podcast with another Barstool employee, a woman named Kayce Smith. This second podcast is called, “The Dime Package,” and the two women discuss their love of football, discuss game highlights, and more.
As I was scrolling through Twitter, I saw Smith had shared a snippet of a video of her speaking while she was recording “The Dime Package.” Smith was describing something that recently had surfaced – longtime sports journalist Jason Whitlock published an article for Outkick.com in which he specifically called out sports TV host Katie Nolan. Whitlock claimed that Nolan got her job at ESPN because she’s “tall, attractive and quite personable on television” and said that Nolan’s beauty “intoxicates TV executives, bloggers and journalists, and it masks a lack of accomplishment, qualifications and skill.”
He said, “Beauty transformed Katie Nolan from bartender to seven-figure personality, Emmy Award-winner and the darling of aroused bloggers and TV critics willing to ignore her pedestrian humor and inability to execute live television.”
Later, according to Smith in her podcast video, Whitlock evidently told sports analyst Maria Taylor to “not give her opinion” while he himself was giving his opinion on the topic.
I’m not a big football or sports fan, so I had no idea any of this was going on. I had to Google who Jason Whitlock, Maria Taylor and Katie Nolan were after watching this video – I hadn’t heard of them before. I went out of my way to look into the facts of what happened and what Smith was talking about in her video.
Whitlock’s column stoked the fire of discussion regarding sexism in the workplace. According to Whitlock – it would seem Nolan only worked for ESPN because of her looks, not because of anything she brought to the table.
In her podcast, Smith continued to explain, “I don’t think that critiquing women in any form in any industry is necessarily sexist. [But] saying that their looks are their only reasons that they have a job is quite literally the definition of sexist.” She continued, “These two women that he’s going after have their jobs because they’re really good at them. And if a woman is perceived as attractive, she’s immediately not as good at her job because she must only have that job because someone is aroused for her.”
After watching Smith’s video twice through, I happened to scroll down out of my own curiosity to see what the replies were to her discussion. As some of our readers may or may not know, Barstool Sports has a largely male audience, and the business has been under fire in the past for toxic masculinity. With that said, female employees who work for the company consistently defend the business – with many claiming there is nowhere they would rather work.
One of the first replies I saw to Smith’s video was a Tweet from a man who replied to her directly with a photo of Smith herself wearing a tight, white mini skirt and separate cropped white top. He wrote above the photo, in quotes, ‘“journalism”’. He was indicating and insinuating nearly the same viewpoint of Jason Whitlock – that Kayce Smith, a young, attractive woman in media wasn’t able to do her job well – after all – she was wearing a tight skirt and a cropped top – therefore her “journalism” simply cannot be taken seriously.
I’m sorry – did we just regress 50, 60, 70 years?
How is it that in 2020 there is still this opinion out there that a woman can’t be both attractive AND good at her job? How does one negate the other? Why does what she chooses to wear take away from the validity of what she says? Why can’t a woman be attractive and also be taken seriously?
Of course, this Katie Nolan, Maria Taylor, Kayce Smith situation hits home for me as a young woman in journalism, and also when I hear stories from my friends in other industries. I’ve been the subject of these types of comments in the past – shockingly even from other women.
I’ll never forget going to cover the opening of MGM Springfield two years ago with our former Assistant Editor Jordan Houston and our Managing Editor G. Michael Dobbs. Mike introduced Jordan and me to two women he knew. We said hi, made polite small talk, and then Jordan and I left Mike to chat with them for a few minutes while we went and took photos of the crowd. Later Mike told Jordan and I that the women had made a comment to him about the way we were dressed. They had asked if we “wore that to the office.”
It was a 85 degree day in August – we were both wearing work – appropriate dresses that fell probably two inches above our knees. The dresses weren’t tight or really anything remarkable, they were just bright in color – mine red and hers royal blue. I’m a stickler for rules – I have a company handbook – I follow the dress code.
Instantly I was disgusted. “Are you serious?” I said. “Why does it matter to them what I’m wearing? Why are people commenting on my attire to you? How does the way I dress affect the way I do my job?”
I get it. We all catch ourselves being judgmental sometimes. It’s human nature. But what did they get out of commenting on our attire – which was appropriate – to our boss? Why does our “look” matter – unless it’s very clearly grossly inappropriate for the workplace, of course. But it wasn’t – not even close.
This type of behavior – Jason Whitlock claiming that Katie Nolan only has her job because of her look, the man replying to Kayce Smith’s podcast with a photo of her in a mini skirt and a crop top attempting to devalue her sports journalism, the women commenting to Mike about our outfits – is so upsetting to me.
I did some homework on the ladies who were the subject of these comments.
Katie Nolan graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations from Hofstra University, started her own pop culture and news blog while bartending, worked for the Fox Sports network, later landed a job with ESPN. She has won a Sports Emmy Award in 2016 and was nominated for another in 2019. Yeah – that definitely sounds like someone who only has her job because of her looks. (Sarcasm.)
Maria Taylor grew up playing sports and received an athletic scholarship to University of Georgia where she later worked as a reporter and host for IMG College. She became the sideline reporter on ESPN2’s weekly college football telecast. She has been an analyst on NCAA Women’s Basketball Selection Show, NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Preview Show and also ESPN’s coverage of both of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament and Women’s Volleyball National Championship. She worked for the SEC Network and was a college football reporter and analyst. She joined the ESPN College GameDay broadcast team as a reporter and host. She has worked on the ABC broadcast of Saturday night football as a sideline reporter. In 2019 she began hosting NBA Countdown, the pre–game show for ESPN’s Friday night and Sunday afternoon NBA games. But sure – she’s attractive, so she definitely has only had those jobs because of her looks. (Sarcasm intensifies.)
I’m sure this seems like a petty complaint to some people. I can already write out myself the emails of disagreement I’m going to get from a few readers. But don’t you see how insulting this is? It’s disheartening and offensive for people to discredit a woman’s hard work based on the fact that she’s attractive or for what she chooses to wear.
These women are accomplished. They have degrees. They have extensive backgrounds in their fields. They’ve worked their way up to where they are in their jobs. They’ve put in the time, the energy and the effort to get to where they are. I’m disgusted that this is so quickly thrown away based on the way that they look.
Imagine a world where men would be discredited because they chose to wear a pair of shorts that are too short or for wearing a button up shirt with too many buttons undone. You probably can’t.
As Smith said when she wrapped up her podcast, “And whether you like Katie Nolan or Maria Taylor and you have an opinion [about] their job – that’s fine you can not like those people for their job. Don’t be mad at them because they’re attractive women.”