to looking at women and thinking about them as individuals.
Whereas with men, we're used to the idea of men doing manly things together.
Think if you go to an art gallery like Le Louvre or the National Gallery.
You'll see a lot of paintings of individual women.
Maybe the Madonna with the baby or you know the female nude.
The individual women.
But you'll go there and
you'll see a Rembrandt of you know the night watch with these soldiers together.
You'll see pictures of men in Parliament, war.
We're used to the idea of men working together and
that being something interesting and epic.
We're not so used to looking and thinking about women doing things together.
There is this kind of sexes or double standard in our ways of seeing.
So we have this idea with men's sports this is something familiar.
Men working together for a noble purpose of defeating the enemy.
The idea of women working together to defeat the enemy, that doesn't
have as much cultural purchase within the gender ideologies of our society.
And then finally, more concretely,
there's also I think around women's team sports a kind of negative feedback loop,
in the sense that there's not that much coverage of women's team sports.
And there is of certain women's individual sports,
like of the 100 meter dash in the Olympics or the figure skating or whatever.
But with team sports there's not very much media coverage.
And surprise, surprise, you don't have media coverage,
you don't have a lot of interest in women's team sports.
And it's not just, sometimes you have, you get women's team sports put on TV.
Like again the WNBA.
But it's not just a matter of putting something on TV.
It's also the question of the back story.
You know cuz we watch football or basketball games often
cuz we know something about the players and we read a blog that said so
and so is having a bad year, so and so recovered from cancer and what not.
When you don't have that media backstory, you don't have as much interest and
you're gonna get a smaller viewership for the game.
So there's kind of a negative media feedback loop where women's team sports
are ignored is part of this bigger story of why women's team sports
don't get the kind of attention that men's sports do.
Now in the background here.
A [INAUDIBLE] elephant in the room.
Many people might say or some of you may be thinking fairly enough.
Well the real reason that women's teams sports are not that popular,
because the women just aren't as good as the men.
You know, women don't run as fast, they don't jump as high, it's just
not as exciting to watch a women's basketball or soccer game as a men's game.
And it's true.
There are physiological difference between men and women.
And in terms of strength and speed men probably do have,
in general, some advantages over women.
I wouldn't say, necessarily, that men are more athletic than women.
You should come to my yoga class someday, and
watch me doing yoga with all these other women in the room.
Men, and men of a certain age, we're not as flexible as women.
And flexibility is part of athleticism.
And it's something that women, on average,
are more athletic than men, in that respect.
But okay, so the argument might be, well women's you know they're feeling all
of these dunks and high flying and speeds, say in soccer or in basketball and
other team sports and that's why we don't wanna watch women sports.
But you know, let's think about that for a minute.
You know and let's take the example of tennis and figure skating.
Now in women's tennis Serena Williams hits the heck out of the ball but
the top women's serve I think is somewhere around 130 mph.
The top men's serve the fastest serve is more like 160.
Serena Williams doesn't hit it as hard as the top men, and
she doesn't probably move quite as fast, even though she's a fantastic athlete.
And yet, you know, often women's tennis gets higher viewerships than men's tennis.
And I think that has to do with the fact that women's tennis has this tradition,
it's had these great personalities.
It's had one of the greatest athletes of all times in Serena Williams.
So even though it may not be a sport with as much speed and strength,
although there's a lot of speed and strength as a men, it's super popular.
And the same with figure skating.
You know the women's figure skating championship in the Olympics gets more
press and there are more rewards for the winner than the men's figure skating.
Yeah, the women aren't doing as fancy athletic, as powerful athletic jumps.
Triple axles are pretty rare,
women's figure skating, they're standard business in mens.
And yet, the women's figure skating attracts more viewers.
So, my point in all of this is just saying,
that it's not about why we choose to watch certain sports or certain [INAUDIBLE].
It's not about necessarily who's stronger, faster, men and women.
It really has to do with these cultural, political, and social factors.
And, with things like figure skating, and tennis, and other