Those more familiar with my regular, every day “Joe Boughner” online presence may not know (or care!) that I also write for a hockey parody blog and maintain a second Twitter account for my sports musings. There isn’t much of a wall between the two personas, frankly, but I’ve found it convenient to compartmentalize slightly.
There’s a lot about online sports fandom that leaves me unsettled, especially around the treatment of women, minorities and any other marginalized groups. Sports Twitter, specifically Hockey Twitter, tends to be dominated by straight white male voices and it can be a hostile place for anyone who doesn’t fit the mould.
This makes sense, I guess, because it reflects the reality of the sport we follow. For all the progress made by a group like You Can Play, hockey is still a place where gender and sexuality are used as insults. I guess the fact that a vocal segment of hockey fans mirrors that is only to be expected.
Making the world suck less 101
Now, one of the things that those more familiar with my hockey ranting persona may not know (or care about!) is that a major area of professional curiosity for me is social marketing and the idea of driving behaviour change for social good. I’ve done a lot of reading and some writing on this topic as it pertains to gender-based discrimination and violence and one of the things I’ve learned is how important the role of bystander can be in changing perceptions of what is and isn’t normal and accepted.
Before I go down this road, though, I want to take a quick second to acknowledge some of the awesome female voices out there in Hockey Twitter, especially Sens Twitter. I’m mostly going to be talking about allies and bystanders here but that isn’t to suggest that those people should be lauded ahead of the people they are allying with and standing beside.
I suffer no delusion about which is more difficult, being an “accepted” voice using your platform for good or being a marginalized voice in an often hostile arena.
So here’s to people like Michaela Schreiter and Shaila “@Fffeisty” Anwar, vocal fans and hosts of “That’s What She Said” on TSN 1200; and to @MrsOsSens, @PuckPossessed and @msconduct who write and blog and draw their passions for us all; and to @Meg_Kelly1, @hhccaacc, @KristaVM, @tweetie_girl20, @aux_clare, @65SweetShots, @Krys_Marie19 and all the other awesome female Sens fans on Twitter that I’ve missed. You the real MVP dot gif.
Being a good bystander
With that being said, I was struck by two entirely different but entirely relevant events that have occurred in the last 12 or so hours that drove home to me what it means to be a good bystander and why it matters.
First of all, my good buddy (and blog boss) Eric “@bonksmullet” Doty and his lovely fiancee Maria “@Mariia19” Camacho went to the Stadium Series outdoor game in Denver (Maria was left out of my earlier roll call because, despite being a pretty cool and smart person, she cheers for a divisional rival). Having met Maria once I can attest to the fact that she’s a both a knowledgeable hockey fan and a vocal one. Evidently the combination was too much to tolerate for some idiot Colorado fans and she was subject to harassment in the stands, both vocal and physical.
Eric has always impressed me with his willingness to use his big soapbox to speak out on this sort of thing. He’s known mostly for making jokes about hockey, it would be easy for him to declare activism and ally-hood as “off brand” but instead he rattles as many cages as he can. So between taking care of his fiancee and talking to police in Denver, he made sure he kept his audience aware that this sort of thing is a) far too common; and b) unacceptable.
Again, I reiterate, this isn’t to put Eric’s actions ahead of Maria’s. But when it comes to being a good bystander, Eric routinely puts on a clinic. Idiocy, bigotry and bias thrive on the silence of good people who don’t feel it’s their place to speak. Eric has been a source of discomfort for many who try to keep marginalized voices on the margins.
Talking, walking and money alongside mouth
12 hours or so after Maria’s latest brush with the good ol’ boys of hockey fandom, a new show debuted on Ottawa’s sports radio station. “That’s What She Said” features two fans (the aforementioned Michaela and Shaila) doing what sports radio hosts do — breaking down the issues and stories of the week. What’s sadly unique, though, is that it’s two female fans.
The two had both previously guested on “Advanced Chats,” a new(ish) show that features bloggers sharing their thought with host Ian Mendes, and from what I hear, a lot of the reason this show came to be is that Mendes — one of the best and kindest guys in the business — heard enough blowback about the lack of female voices on his shows that he decided to do something about it.
Once again, this isn’t to put what Ian did above what Michaela and Shaila are doing. But, also once again, it would’ve been easy for him to do nothing at all. Sports journalists are used to criticism and blowback. He could’ve retreated to the good ol’ boys bubble and done nothing. Instead he recognized that Michaela and Shaila have a lot of smart, informed things to say and went to bat for them and got them an audience.
The many ways to be a good ally
One of the biggest things I’ve learned from very smart people like Julie “@JulieSLalonde” Lalonde is that there is a wide range of ways to be a good bystander. Ian and Eric drew mention in this piece because they’re using their larger-than-average platforms to make a larger-than-average contribution to changing the definition of what is acceptable and normal. But their work is amplified by every single privileged voice that lines up behind them.
When Eric spoke out against the treatment of Maria specifically and female fans more broadly, dozens of others shared his message and offered their own words of support. When news broke about the birth of “That’s What She Said,” dozens if not hundreds of privileged voices offered up a word of congratulations. Many of us who consider Schreids and Fffeisty to be friends even braced for a fight, ready to get their backs if needed.
Sports fandom is still all-too-often a shitty experience for marginalized and non-privileged people. It still takes a thicker skin to hang in as someone who isn’t a white male. So it’s incumbent on all of us to recognize that we have a role to play. Throwing up our hands and saying it’s not our fight simply because we’re not the ones being attacked makes us part of the problem.
Be a good bystander. Amplify voices and perspectives that are different than yours and shout down anyone who would try to drown them out. If you feel like you’ve got a platform, use it. If you don’t, use what you’ve got anyway. Every tweet and every like and every retweet that makes bigotry and hatred feel unwelcome is a step in the right direction.
Not being part of the problem simply isn’t enough. Change will only come when the perception of what is normal and accepted changes too. Too many people have made it uncomfortable to be anything other than a straight white man in the sports fan realm. It’s long passed time for them to experience some discomfort for themselves.