Gendered Team Names

LouieW

I see no real issues with men's and women's pro sports teams in a city having similar names. Calling a men's NBA team the Phoenix Suns and a women's [W]NBA team the Phoenix Mercury seems a lot like how the Cubs' and Bears' nicknames go together.

That said, I find it annoying when the men's and women's branches of the same team have gendered names. By gendered names I mean doing something like calling the men's team "the Bulldogs" and the women's team the "the Lady Bulldogs" as Georgia does or referring to the men's teams as "the Cubs" and the women's teams as "the Cubettes." The most egregious version of this phenomenon that I have seen is Tarleton State's decision to name its men's teams "the Texans" and its women's teams "the TexAnns." Seriously, "TexAnns" is not even a word and it is not like "Texans" is really gender specific to begin with.

Since this probably seems like a super silly complaint, I figured it might be worthwhile to actually give reasons.

Most team names are already gender neutral, so adding gendered versions is unnecessary.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing inherently masculine or feminine about bear cubs, bulldogs, tigers, or Texans. Those names already include male and female variants, so I see no real need for adding "Lady" before any of them. In fact, not only is modifying sports team names for women unnecessary, it reaffirms the idea that male is the default and that women's sports are just a sideshow. Most merchandise for teams is printed with the men's teams' nickname after all.

Plus, odds are good that the men's team name is the one that will come to mind for most people when talking about a school. I feel like women's sports already receive little enough attention as it is. Having separate team names that are even less likely to be recognized just seems like it exacerbates that problem.

Having the same team name for both genders helps build unity.
While I imagine that most schools' men's football teams do not practice with their women's volleyball ones too often, I think that it can help add legitimacy to men's and women's programs if they are linked together. With some sports like swimming, cross country, or track, it seems like the relationship between men's and women's teams is a lot closer and gives even more of a reason for each team to fit under the same team name umbrella. Moreover, I believe that having a single team to root for can also have benefits in terms of more solidarity within the student body of a school.

Women should be able to be feminine (if they wish) and play sports without having to be called "Ladies."
Admittedly, I am not sure why schools decide to give women's teams different names. My guess would be that schools do that in part to make the statement that being an athlete does not have to make you macho and that athletics and femininity are not mutually exclusive.

Whatever reason schools have for such a choice, I think that using those gendered names is a wrongheaded one-size-fits-all approach. If some women on a team see themselves as "Lady Bulldogs," that is fine. If other women do not care about being "Ladies" and just want to be "Bulldogs," that is also fine. In that sense, I feel like using the "Lady Bulldog" moniker and others like it unfairly imposes some people's view of what it means to be a female athlete on others.

glennmagusharvey

I completely agree with you on this issue.

This practice is rooted in the practice of taking male as the "default" gender, hence the need to adorn the name with "Lady" or some other alteration for the female team.

And this practice also reinforces the notion of men's sports being the "vanilla" version of sports, and that women's sports teams somehow have an added characteristic for having female players rather than male players.  Which in turn reinforces gender roles and sexism.

Bee

I guess I'm just used to college sports where everyone is "The $MASCOTs".  I guess I can sort of see why you'd need to do some sort of differentiation in pro sports where it's more decentralized, but eh.

Herma_Mora

I don't know. While I definitely bitch about small things, this seems to be making a bigger deal out of something that, while probably sexist, is nowhere near as harmful as we're led to believe in this thread.

LouieW

Bee,
Actually, most of the examples that came to mind for me were college teams (e.g., the Georgia Bulldogs/Lady Bulldogs or the Tarleton State Texans/TexAnns). Given that the only high school and college teams I have seen that use these gendered names are Southern ones, I wonder if this type of naming convention is more of a regional thing though.

Herma_Mora,
Yeah, I definitely agree that this is a pretty petty complaint. Do you think it would be a better idea to make a thread for particularly minor issues like this one rather than make a separate topic for each little nitpick?

Bee

We just kind of say the Ducks/Beavers/whoever won in .  If you're talking women's basketball, just say women's basketball.

Herma_Mora

Yeah, I definitely agree that this is a pretty petty complaint. Do you think it would be a better idea to make a thread for particularly minor issues like this one rather than make a separate topic for each little nitpick?

Nah, it's cool.

Ponicalica

I think I've only heard "Lady Tar Heels" in official communication and such.  I haven't heard enough college sports talk here in LA to say about here though.