Shop to win, guest post by Margot Kramer Biehle

Here’s a question I can’t wait for my daughter to hear:  “If you can’t celebrate finding a leopard print bag on sale at Kohl’s, what CAN you celebrate?”  I mean, really, what else is there?  Especially for someone as decorated and lauded as sensational athlete and gold medal soccer player Mia Hamm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xl5aP_fKBo  Kohl’s new “Shop to Win” campaign features Mia, Lindsey Vonn (Olympic gold medalist and world class skier) and Dara Torres (Olympic gold medalist and international swimmer), describing the intensity and thrill of competition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAOSB3jtz7k&feature=relmfu  In the sport of… shopping.  In 31 seconds all of their hard work and successes have been cheapened.

Ladies, you have become conspirators in advertising’s new sexist low.  Girls around the world who worship these symbols of incredible sacrifice in making a dream come true can now shoot for the grand goal of:  scoring a killer deal shopping?  Is that the message they really want to send to younger girls?  And how does this campaign help their athlete sisters, fighting for recognition from men, when their message is effectively, “Thank God all that sporty stuff is done so we can get down to what we REALLY want to do – SHOP!” The ad campaign must have been conceived at Sterling Cooper Draper Price.   Right?

Wrong – Lindsey loves the campaign. Check out her interview with Bloomberg TV telling the interviewer Kohl’s fits with her image because, you know, we girls have GOALS when we shop and like to feel like we are WINNING!  http://mobile.bloomberg.com/video/88881222/  If you are still unconvinced that this is the real Lindsey Vonn, her explanation of sponsor choice reveals her true colors.   It’s not all about the money apparently–I mean, Red Bull provides a trainer and a massage therapist that travel with her, and Vail Resorts has a training camp named after her. And, y’know, like, that’s what matters.

Heaven help us when a smart real female role model comes along and says I like myself for who I am and screw anyone who wants to paint me into a dumb pretty girl corner.

See my post on SFGate about this campaign and the gender discrimination in endorsement options offered to male versus female athletes.

Tell Koh’s how you feel about its new ad campaign on its Facebook page.

Champ or Vamp?

Are women athletes celebrated more for what they can do or for how they look? Here’s a photo of Winter Olympics 2010 silver medal winner in Ladies Super Combined, Julia Mancuso. Have women athletes made any progress winning endorsements, acclaim, recognition, and money for their skill rather than their appearance? Here’s something I wrote about Summer Olympics 2000 and the state of female athletes that was reprinted in a bunch of papers. Tell me what you think about how we’re doing now.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the photo she’s wearing a tight two-piece suit. Legs parted, head thrown back, eyes closed, she smiles.

The woman is not a Playmate of the Month but Olympic high jumper Amy Acuff in Esquire magazine’s cover story/pictorial entitled “America’s Ten Sexiest Athletes.” But on closer examination, Amy is not lying down; she is jumping.

A perusal of recent issues of men’s magazines reveals the latest sex symbol is the female athlete.

Sports Illustrated features Olympic swimmer Jenny Thompson topless with her hands covering her breasts. And Gear has a photo of the Australian women’s soccer team, all players completely naked with their arms and legs placed strategically.

It’s no coincidence that this fascination with women athletes as soft-core porn stars comes right as women are making enormous strides in achieving parity with men in the Olympics. One step forward, two long jumps back.

At the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, more women will compete in more sports with more media coverage than ever before. With 4,400 participants, women will represent a record 42 percent of the competitors. Most exciting, women will be competing in what were once exclusively male domains. New categories for women include weightlifting, pole vaulting, water polo, tae kwon do and the triathlon.

But the slew of wet T-shirt pictorials reveals a powerful cultural bias. The American public is still uncomfortable seeing women as successful athletes and celebrating them for embodying the qualities that athletes possess. Magazines like Maxim are undermining hard-won progress by reducing all female competition to just another beauty contest.

Athletes are valued for what their bodies can do, not how they look.

Athletes are competitive, ambitious and they know how to win, but those attributes just aren’t ladylike. Photographing sports superstars in lace panties and sheer camisoles keeps them safely inside the parameters of womanhood.

While girls learn early on they will be judged for their looks, boys learn that athleticism equals attractiveness. Ever since high school, the jocks were the big men on campus, a guy’s skill made him hot and the best player sealed his status by getting the prettiest girl.

The grown-up world isn’t much better. Male athletes are worshipped for their achievements. Joe DiMaggio won Marilyn Monroe, and that wasn’t because he looked good in his uniform.

For women, athletic skill doesn’t equal desirability. In a capitalist world, the girl with the most money wins. Blond and buxom tennis star Anna Kournikova makes $11 million to $15 million in endorsements, though she has never won a professional tournament. Her earnings equal those of Martina Hingis, who has earned her money by winning 26 career titles, and are much more than 43-time winner Monica Seles’ $7.5 million or defending U.S. Open champ Serena Williams’ $6 million.

Even a pretty female player isn’t valued like a male player. Tiger Woods gets $47 million; Michael Jordan, $40 million, and 70-year-old Arnold Palmer makes $19 million.

The excuse is that men make big money because their sports make more money from television contracts, but it’s all a vicious circle. When women aren’t valued for their skills, aren’t trained properly and aren’t celebrated the way male athletes are, they’re at a severe disadvantage.

While many call this just bad luck, the law calls it illegal. More than 20 years ago, Title IX, which demanded gender equity in sports funding, began to be enforced. A generation of women growing up under it is a major reason why female athletes have been able to make the advances they have.

Even with this law, females make up only one third of interscholastic and intercollegiate athletes.

Summer 2000’s gold medal favorite, Stacy Dragila, was once told women don’t have the upper body strength to pole vault. Today, pole vaulting is the most popular new women’s event, with Dragila holding the world record.

For reaching that record last summer, Dragila got only half the $60,000 prize money that men get for the same competition. But, she was able to generate more income and media coverage for her sport by posing with other track and field women for a sexy calendar.

Athletics should be the one place where there truly is a meritocracy, where women are rewarded for how high they can jump, how fast they can run or how much they can lift. But once again, the rules are different for women.

This summer, along with their shotputs and discuses, female Olympic competitors will need lipstick, good lighting and lingerie if they want to get the gold.