Two Young Women...

This week was marked by a number of stories of more significance, but Curmie is drawn to the tales of two young women, one 23, the other 18, taking a stand. Under normal circumstances, that would be an inherently good thing. But this time… well, Curmie isn’t so sure. In both cases, there is no little ethical ambiguity, but Curmie finds himself agreeing with The Man. Let’s take them in order…and in the order I’m more confident of my response. 

 

On May 26 (OK, that’s over a week ago, but Curmie didn’t read about it until Tuesday), women’s tennis star Naomi Osaka announced on Twitter that she would not speak to the press after matches at the French Open. Such “media conferences” are specifically required of athletes competing in Grand Slam tournaments:

Unless injured and physically unable to appear, a player or team must attend the post-match media conference(s) organised immediately or within thirty (30) minutes after the conclusion of each match, including walkovers, whether the player or team was the winner or loser, unless such time is extended or otherwise modified by the Referee for good cause. In addition, all Main Draw players must participate, if requested, in a pre-event press conference to be arranged during the two days before the start of the Main Draw. All media obligations include, but are not limited to, interviews with the host and player’s national broadcaster. Violation of this Section shall subject a player to a fine up to $20,000.

That’s pretty clear. Ms. Osaka concludes her announcement by declaring,

…if the organizations think that they can just keep saying, “do press or you’re gonna be fined”, and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh. Anyways, I hope the considerable amount that I get fined for this will go towards a mental health charity.

As might be expected, this caused no little turmoil in the world of professional tennis, and indeed in the world at large. The list of athletes and celebrities weighing in on the issue is lengthy, including the Williams sisters, the McEnroe brothers, Stephen Curry, Michael Phelps, and a host of B-list actors. Most of them recite the obligatory mantra that Ms. Osaka needs to prioritize her mental health, that she’s sooooooo brave, and that the tennis federation shouldn’t enforce their own rules. (Mats Wilander’s take that she should “reconsider or don’t play” was something of a voice crying in the wilderness, although she did, with yet more self-promotion, drop out of the tournament.)

Look, mental health is, indeed, important. Answering the same stupid questions—and there are few of a different description—from reporters must be annoying in the extreme, and if you happen to be introverted or anxious in these situations, it can be stressful. But Curmie would make a few points: 

1. These interviews are part of the job. You get the benefits that accrue to the sport in general because of that press coverage (things like prize money and fame, for example). Equally importantly, especially if, like Ms. Osaka, you make literally tens of millions of dollars a year from endorsements, part of your job is to sit there on camera sporting your Nike jacket or whatever and act like a human being. (The fact that most if not all of Osaka’s sponsors are rushing to her defense means only that they think they’ll profit more from this action than by holding a star to the terms of her contract. They’re probably right.) 

2. Every f*cking job in the world is stressful. Naomi Osaka netted over $55,000,000 last year, counting prize money and endorsements. Invest that money at 6% (6% over inflation is regarded as the standard long-term return on a well-managed portfolio), without ever doing another thing that makes money, and she’ll make more money every year in perpetuity than Curmie, a PhD and full professor at an accredited university, will make for his entire career. I have job-related stresses, too. So does the 16-year-old girl working the counter at McDonald’s. So do you, Gentle Reader, even if your job is stay-at-home parent. Yet we’re all still expected to fulfill all of the duties we’re contracted or otherwise obligated to do. Osaka is acting like an entitled brat: lessons learned, no doubt, from the aforementioned tennis-playing siblings of both genders. 

3. In a fit of hypocrisy that would make even a politician blush, Osaka granted an on-court interview after the one match she did play, and also spoke to Wowow, described by the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick as “a Japanese broadcaster that pays her for her time, access and words. Hmmm.” 

4. Curmie really doesn’t like humble-bragging. Wow, how munificent of you, Naomi, to risk paying a “considerable” fine amounting to 0.0027% of your annual income. Other players probably get stressed out at those media conferences, too, but they can’t afford the fine, so they soldier on. Then dropping out of the event altogether because you “didn’t want to be a distraction.” This is either world-class disingenuousness or you are truly dumber than dirt. You had to have known—or at the very least your media consultant had to have known—that this would be a huge distraction. You’ve never won a clay-court championship, and you’ve never made it to the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, but now you’re the top story of the tournament, hailed for your “bravery.” Ironic, huh? 

Let’s be fair: few athletes in team sports, especially from the losing side, are required to do post-game interviews. And of course most major team sports have active players’ unions to take up just this type of cause. So team-sport athletes are already given some cover; others are allowed to be prickly—football fans may remember that presser with Marshawn Lynch in which every question was answered with a variation on “I’m only here so I won’t get fined.” 

That said, in the same way Democrats want to eliminate the Electoral College and Republicans want to eliminate mail-in ballots, the time to make changes is now for the future. Perhaps changes would improve the game. But Donald Trump won and then lost the Presidency according to the rules in place, and Naomi Osaka was rightly fined and admonished. 

The other young woman to talk about is Paxton Smith, who completed her studies at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas with a 104.93 average. (Grade inflation? What grade inflation?) She’s certainly now the most famous valedictorian in the state of Texas… well, at least the most famous for being a valedictorian (just in case there’s a sought-after basketball or football player who also happens to be a good student). Why? Because she didn’t give the speech that had been approved by the powers-that-be, but instead pulled a different speech out of her bra. Yes, really. 

And this isn’t like the case Curmie wrote about nine years ago, in which a valedictorian in Oklahoma substituted “hell” for the pre-approved “heck” in her speech. This wasn’t about a single word; this was a completely different topic. What had been approved was a speech about the way media shape our perceptions. What was delivered was an excoriation of Texas’s newly signed “fetal heartbeat law.” 

OK, let’s stipulate three things: 

1. Curmie has long despised the idea that schools think they have the right to censor student speech. I wrote in 2012 about the “troubling… implicit assumption that it’s any of the school’s business to censor students. If you don’t trust your valedictorian not to say something offensive, don’t have her speak.” Of course, this episode is likely to be exactly what such censoriousness was intended to avoid. 

2. Many, many politicians, religious leaders, and corporate bigwigs have injected controversial political views into graduation speeches. It could legitimately be argued that such people have less right to do so that would an exceptional student from that school. 

3. The “fetal heartbeat law” is indeed abhorrent. It criminalizes abortion after a mere six weeks of pregnancy because there’s a “heartbeat.” The bill’s proponents casually ignore testimony from obstetricians and gynecologists who say there can’t be a heartbeat without a heart, which hasn't yet developed. (This in addition to other logical inconsistencies in what passes for their rationale, since “punishing women because we can” still hasn’t found its way into the rhetoric.) 

Of course, many women don’t know, or even suspect, that they’re pregnant until after six weeks. Add to this the fact that there are no provisions for the victims of rape or incest, and the bill is truly horrific. Governor Abbott’s proclamation that the bill was “bi-partisan” is, as usual with anything emanating from that particular slimebag’s mouth, well short of the truth. There are a total of 80 Democrats in the Texas legislature; 1 voted for the bill. That doesn’t sound like bi-partisanship to Curmie.

All this said, Curmie still thinks the deception involved outweighs the positives of hearing a young woman claiming the right to be heard on a matter which is far more likely to affect her than it would any of the overwhelmingly male politicians who made the decision. If, ten years ago, Curmie objected to the hijacking of a Louisiana graduation ceremony by a student who co-opted a “moment of silence” to turn it into the Lord’s Prayer, he can’t now countenance a similar action by a Texas student today just because Curmie is an agnostic progressive rather than an evangelical reactionary. The moral and ethical concerns are the same. 

Was Ms. Smith “brave”? Perhaps, although she not unexpectedly got a whole lot of personal attention out of her three-minute speech. And her assertion that she was speaking on “a day where you are most inclined to listen to a voice like mine, a woman’s voice” is, alas, probably true.  But she also de facto violated the trust placed in her by her school. I can’t call her a heroine just because I think she’s right on the issues.