Last week, Caster Semenya's gender identity made big news as people began to question whether a woman, who "looks like a man," as everyone kept reminding us, could really be such a good athlete. It seems that female athletes are either A. too manly, B. sexualized to the point where their athletic prowess no longer matters, or C. portrayed as suffering from the ultimate female problem: how to juggle work and family. In the past year, much of news about women in sports focused on the significance of sex appeal for tennis players, the size of Serena William's butt, Candace Parker's maternity leave, Olympic moms, and of course, Semenya's "manly" body. Of course, there are some sports writers who focus on their achievements, but it is still notable how many profiles of female athletes highlight their uniquely "feminine" struggles.

Compare lines from two articles about women in sports:

First, a quote from this Sunday's New York Times, which begins,

Sybille Bammer always wished to be a mother, but first she wanted to be a tennis star. History and conventional wisdom told her she couldn't be both at the same time.

And an article from the Daily Beast on female surfers, which opens with the subhead:

The women's surf tour has never been more glamorous and the new generation is getting recognition beyond their sport. So why are sponsors bailing? (Plus: A gallery of teen stars.)

And continues with:

"You have to wear brown eyeliner, because the black smears really bad," Sage Erickson explained. And waterproof mascara."

It was a hot, July afternoon in Huntington Beach, California-a.k.a. Surf City, U.S.A.-and Erickson, an 18-year-old pro surfer who was competing in the Hurley U.S. Open of Surfing, had a few things to say before hitting the water. Standing beside her surf board, which she'd personalized with paint pens-a cartoonish Barbie on a cell phone with a dialogue bubble that read: "Blah blah blah."

Each article goes on to portray the strong women interviewed as characters as two-dimensionally cartoonish as the Barbie doodled on Erickson's board. The New York Times is much kinder, yet the focus here is primarily on how she was able to give birth and play tennis. It seems that the answer to this riddle is her supportive boyfriend, who gave up work to support Brammer, and play "Mr. Mom." "So many people made jokes," said Bammer's boyfriend, "I think this was a big deal to them because they think it is not that normal that the man stays home and watches the kid and the woman goes for work." Bammer, ranked No. 29 in the world, is seen as remarkable not just because of her skill, but because she manages to have it all, a child, a boyfriend, and a career.

The Daily Beast draws attention to a different way of selling the female athlete, which we can probably all recognize. The surfer girls in this piece are unmistakably girly—they are young, pretty, "glamorous," and friendly. However, women's surfing is still in trouble. But the new "crop" of women may be able to solve their funding problems with good looks and charm. Hurley International marketer Pat O'Connell sums it up:

"These girls are legitimately amazing surfers," he said. "For me, there's marketability and visibility-I think this new crop has both. They're good-looking girls, they're very likeable, and their ability levels are so high that they're catching everyone's attention."

Throughout her story, writer Nicole LaPorte never lets us forget about this fact, the "effortless sexiness that comes with having a killer bod." For these women to sell, and to be interesting to the general public, they have to be sexy. At least until they give birth, and then we can start puzzling out the difficulties of that equation.

And Pam Spaulding over at Pandagon points out yet another example of female athletes being viewed as somehow dangerously masculine. She quotes the Concerned Women for America website, which features a blurb about the new book God's Girls in Sports:

With the advent of Title Nine, girls have more opportunities than ever to participate in sports. While the social, physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of sports are frequently discussed, Coach and mom Holly Page says there are also pitfalls that are too often overlooked. In her book God's Girls in Sports, Holly discusses hard issues like demanding training schedules that compete with family and church time, male-oriented coaching styles that force more masculine behaviors on girls without meeting girls' needs for relationships, the quest for scholarships, and lesbianism in college-level sports. She also talks about when it may be time to quit. Holly discusses these issues with CWA Policy Analyst Martha Kleder, as well as other ways parents can help their daughters maintain a life balance and get the most out of sports, without sports getting the best of them. (Emphasis Spaulding's)

Women who play sports, and do not conform to either the relate-able modern woman mold of the working mother or fall into the curvy sex pot role, must be either lesbians or secretly male.

Female athletes seem to serve as a never-ending well of material for those obsessed with both the female body and the importance of femininity. There seems to be a real difficulty marketing athletic women to the general public without resorting to these tricks, which continually reiterate that this is about a woman in sports, a female athlete, someone with two X chromosomes. In a way it makes sense that a physical career would lead to coverage that is so heavily centered on the body, but the emphasis on womanly-ness and athleticism undercuts the fact that many women are naturally athletic, that it is not impossible to be both.

Sybille Bammer's Tennis Career Is A Family Affair [New York Times]
Surf Girls: The Next Wave [The Daily Beast]
Concerned Women For America's Oldie Stereotype [Pandagon]

According to the New York Times:

Parker, 23, is determined to buck the conventional wisdom that women can fulfill their potential as professional athletes and as parents as long as they tackle their lives like a to-do list, crossing one item off before starting on the next.

"I'm always the type of person that wants to prove people wrong," she said. "I just want to come back and show that you can be even stronger than before."

Parker's steely resolve and determination are admirable, and she has a husband, a nanny and family members to help her out. Additionally, her coworkers can relate: Five other team members on the Sparks are mothers — including Lisa Leslie — and Carla Christofferson, the Sparks' 41-year-old co-owner, is pregnant.

It's frustrating that Parker has to say she wants to come back "even stronger than before." She's a talented athlete, but clearly feels like she has something to prove. While it's true that Parker hasn't played a competitive game in 10 months, it's not like she suffered a debilitating injury. But her words are an answer to widely-held notions of how motherhood changes a woman — how people expect different, or possibly less of you, especially when it comes to your job. And, even more important: It speaks to the expectations this new mother has placed on herself.

Diapers and Jump Shots: Player Has Her Hands Full [NY Times]

Earlier: Juggling Pregnancy & Career Without Dropping The Ball
Are Women Having Babies Earlier Because They Take Their Careers For Granted?

Earlier this year, Parker was profiled in the New York Times, and her "reproductive life" was part of the discussion. Parker is a favorite on her team, a star in the league and "being counted on to nurture women's basketball." So her pregnancy doesn't only affect her: "W.N.B.A. Commissioner Donna Orender said her initial reaction to Parker's pregnancy was a quiet sigh of resignation," Karen Crouse of the Times wrote. Orender said later: "[The timing of her pregnancy was] a very public discussion that hasn't happened before. I do think that's a good thing for women who go through these issues often in silence or alone. Candace can be a very usable symbol of how you can have a family and a career." But! On message boards, Parker was called "selfish." She disagrees: "My whole career has been trying to please people in basketball. Now it's time to please myself. For me, family has always come first." She did have to give up a $1.5 million deal to play for a Russian club.

According to the Times, there are a dozen moms playing in the league. And then there's Brynn Cameron, who plays for the University of Southern California team — she's a single mom, with a two-year-old son by former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Matt Leinart. But even more visible is 36-year-old three-time WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie (Parker's teammate), who recently announced that she is retiring to spend more time with her family. Basketball, for her, was tough to balance with family life. "I love being a wife, I enjoy my husband and our time. I love being a mom. I'm really passionate about raising a child and being there for her. For me, I just see it's really hard to give 100 percent to everything." Leslie's daughter is 19 months old, and Leslie missed the 2007 season to give birth.

While many female athletes have children, pregnancy in basketball seems more high profile and more dramatic than say, tennis or golf (Annika Sorenstam retired from the L.P.G.A. Tour in December because, at 38, she wants to have kids.) Is it because of the idea that a knocked-up woman has somehow "let down" her team? Is it because of the chance of injury or sheer jostling a pregnant player endures? Candace Parker doesn't seem to let any of this faze her, telling the LA Times: "I'm proud of my child, excited about my child and I'm excited about the opportunity to have a child and be an athlete."

Candace Parker Could Be The Next Big Thing [LA Times]
Candace Parker Is Balancing Career And Family [NY Times]
U.S.C.'s Cameron Balances Basketball And Motherhood [NY Times]
Lisa Leslie To Retire From Sparks At Season's End [AP]

[Image via AP.]

USA 's Candace Parker, left, steals the ball from Mali forward Diana Gandega during the first quarter of their women's preliminary basketball game at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) — AP

Read more coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Hill continues, "We treat girl fights like a novelty, when they shouldn't be seen as such. News flash to those still using sticks to create fire: Female athletes are just as competitive as men and when some are pushed to the edge, they'll exhibit the same lack of control." Salon's sports columnist King Kaufman agrees that the fight could ultimately be a positive for the WNBA, but for slightly different reasons. "The old truism says there's no such thing as bad publicity, and people who don't normally talk about the WNBA are talking a lot about it this week," Kaufman says. "[Though] it's worth noting that a big part of why Malice at the Palace II is getting so much attention is because it was so rare. As a brawl, it wasn't much. Ron Artest can get in a worse fight than that when he's alone in a room. But it stood out because that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen in the WNBA, land of role models."

And honestly? I agree with both of them. I've been watching men's basketball for over a decade, and if a similar fight went down in the NBA, nary an eyelash would be batted. It would occupy maybe an inch of column space. Why should the WNBA be held to some pristine standard? Is it because people are so freaked out by angry women, and even more freaked out by angry black women? And the argument that people are reacting to this fight the same way they react to any fight in sports is hogwash. Take this touchy-feely commentary from ESPN's Mechelle Voepel, who wonders about the emotional motivation of Plenette Pierson, who was one of the main brawlers in the scuffle. "Why…did Pierson seem to be so angry all the time? It's something only Pierson and those closest to her can probably answer," Voepel said. When men in sports get into fights, no one tries to psychoanalyze them or explore their "feelings."

In post-game commentary, Lisa Leslie, who was accidentally shoved to the ground by assistant coach Rick Mahorn, said she was disappointed about the fight because, "As a role model this is not the way I want to represent myself. I'm a mom, this is not the way I want to represent myself in front of my daughter." While Leslie is right on one level, the thing about role models is that they aren't infallible. One fight in the over ten years of the WNBA? I don't think Leslie's or anyone else's role model status is in question.

WNBA Brawl: Bad, But Good? [Salon]
In Real Life, Female Athletes Lose Their Temper, Too [ESPN]
"Bad Girls" Mind-set, Pierson And Parker A Volatile Mix [ESPN]

Susan Ziegler, a sports psychologist, thinks that the focus on the players' appearances isn't healthy for the athletes, as it diminishes their legitimacy. "Once you begin to worry about how the person looks as opposed to how she plays, you've crossed the line into dangerous play," Ziegler said to the Trib. "We're not really focused on marketing them as athletes but as feminine objects."

We live in a looksist society — you can be sure that Michael Jordan made so much money on endorsements not only because he was the best player in the NBA, but also because he was gorgeous. You think Larry Bird made anywhere near that kind of dough? But the WNBA's assumption that the perceived attractiveness of their players will draw men — and otherwise disinterested females — to the court seems foolhardy. Whenever I hear a man complain about women's basketball, he's whining that the quality of play is somehow inferior to that in the NBA, not that the players are "ugly". The Chicago Tribune asked Ziegler for advice on how to market Parker, and she offered, "As a pure athlete... As the top athlete in the country. Leave it at that."

WNBA Offers Advice To Rookies [Chicago Tribune]

Earlier: Tennessee Lady Vols Trounce Stanford To Win NCAA Title

The Times recounts the tale of Pat's shoulder, which she dislocated last month while "forearming a raccoon off her deck in Knoxville, after the critter threatened one of her Labrador retrievers." Pat even tried to fix her shoulder on her own before calling a doctor two hours later. "Never saw the raccoon again," Summitt tells the Times. "He's probably thinking: 'That's the craziest woman I've ever met. I'm out of here.' "

Below, some great shots of Candace Parker, Pat Summitt and the other Vols giving Stanford the business. After that whole cheerleader brawl debacle yesterday, it's nice to know that athletically-minded high school girls have women like these to look up to.

Art Of Motivation [Sports Illustrated}
Summitt and Tennessee Roll To Another Title [New York Times]