I also was a little bothered by it because we try so hard to make female media members more than their appearance. And then she made it about appearance.
I didn't love the remark (I'm sensitive about acne, too, as someone who was made fun of for it as a teenager and still has a lot of skin problems), but I think it's important to recognize that judging female media members on appearance is fundamentally different from someone, even a media member, making fun of a player's acne. I think a lot of the more moralizing responses she's getting are missing the mark in a similar way. Matt Murray isn't systemically oppressed in any way because of acne, whereas for a female athlete, it would be commented on constantly, and a female media member probably couldn't get a job, at least not where her face would be shown. Hockey twitter fandom makes fun of plenty of guys for their appearance without this kind of response.
That being said, I do think it's a little mean-spirited and not very professional -- neither of which is totally out of line with my impression of Jen Neale anyways.
Re: Game Day Thread: May 30, 2016
I also was a little bothered by it because we try so hard to make female media members more than their appearance. And then she made it about appearance.
I didn't love the remark (I'm sensitive about acne, too, as someone who was made fun of for it as a teenager and still has a lot of skin problems), but I think it's important to recognize that judging female media members on appearance is fundamentally different from someone, even a media member, making fun of a player's acne. I think a lot of the more moralizing responses she's getting are missing the mark in a similar way. Matt Murray isn't systemically oppressed in any way because of acne, whereas for a female athlete, it would be commented on constantly, and a female media member probably couldn't get a job, at least not where her face would be shown. Hockey twitter fandom makes fun of plenty of guys for their appearance without this kind of response.
That being said, I do think it's a little mean-spirited and not very professional -- neither of which is totally out of line with my impression of Jen Neale anyways.