Lefty groupthink can prove harmful to your credibility. That's what happened to CBS and other lemmings who took up tennis star Serena Williams' cause of "sexism" in tennis after her loss to Naomi Osaka, of Japan in the Sept. 8th championship match of the U.S. Open women's tennis tournament. The New York Times has since reported that men are punished (see photo of unnamed male tennis pro abusing umpire) by tennis officials three times as often as women, deflating charges of sexism by Williams and her compliant media.
Williams lashed out at U.S. Open officials for punishing her with a code violation, penalty point and penalty game. Williams called the umpire a "thief," berated tournament referee Brian Earley, "Because I’m a woman you are going to take this away from me? That is not right." In the press room Williams pressed her grievance: "I have seen other men call other umpires several things. I am here fighting for women's right and women's equality .... and for me to say 'thief' and for him to take a game it made me feel like it was sexist." Plenty of members of the media applauded Williams' comments.
Christina Capatides and Cydny Adams, of CBS News online, headlined their story, "Serena Williams' U.S. Open loss may be the grossest example of sports sexism yet." The CBS duo wrote, "Male players are often excused — celebrated, even — for putting their emotions on display in the heat of the moment," and this:
"Sparring repeatedly with chair umpire Carlos Ramos, Williams refused to back down, and in doing so, highlighted the double standard in expectations and discipline that exists for men and women on the biggest stages in professional tennis. Several of her male peers took to Twitter to lament the unfortunate discrepancy."
That CBS report lists several anecdotal examples of when male tennis pro's misbehaved and got away with it. They claimed another example of "gender disparity in this arena" came when "the CBS Sports commentator can be heard nonchalantly predicting, "There will be some shouting and some emotional moments in this one." When male players act out it's shrugged off as normal and "A testosterone-driven reality of the game." Another CBS grievance mentioned U.S. women's soccer player Hope Solo getting banned from the team for calling rivals cowards, while NFL bad men Adrian Peterson, Michael Vick and Ray Lewis played again after running afoul of the law.
More examples of media fronting Williams' sexism line with little or no scrutiny include: USA Today, CNN, BBC, ESPN and more. The New York Times' Christopher Clarey dug up statistics from the past 20 years to prove Williams, her supporters and media sexism mongers dead wrong:
"Male players were slapped with 1,517 fines compared to 535 fines for females according to data compiled by officials at Grand Slam tournaments for the period covering 1998 to 2018. Also, men received 649 fines for breaking racquets to 99 for women in tens of thousands of matches in the four Grand Slams over the last two decades. And men were fined 344 times compared to 140 for 'audible obscenity' and 287 to 67 for unsportsmanlike conduct."
An Australian media source criticized Williams for harming the women's movement. Agence France-Presse (AFP), an international newsagency headquartered in Paris, quoted Caroline Wilson of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. saying: "She is doing a terrible disservice to women’s rights, to the #metoo movement, to gender equality. To say she’s fighting for women’s rights, when what she is, is a bad sport."
