Ah, but did you see the outfit Ines Sainz wore to interview New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez?
No, it wouldn’t be fair to say Sainz was dressed like a scandalous, fourth-class hoochie. But she wasn’t dressed professionally either. Anybody remember professionalism?
None of those howling about Sainz’s alleged “mistreatment” at the hands of some Jets players do. The story goes like this: Sainz went to visit the Jets practice field and locker room to interview Sanchez.
While on the practice field, some players threw footballs in her direction, which receivers supposedly missed deliberately. The idea was to let those pigskins roll near Sainz so they could ogle what she was wearing.
And that would be those skin-tight jeans and white blouse open just enough to reveal some titillating – yeah, the pun’s kind of intended – cleavage. When Sainz got to the locker room, she received the stares, ogles, catcalls and comments normal, heterosexual men give to good-looking women. Sainz’s initial reaction was that which normal, good-looking heterosexual women have when men react that way.
According to a story that ran on the Web sitewww.cbsnews.com, Sainz told a colleague that what the players said “was definitely in a joking tone, very amicable. I wasn’t offended.” In another story that appeared on the Web sitewww.dailymail.co.uk, Sainz gave this comment:
“I never felt attacked, nor that (the players) reacted grossly toward me. I arrived in the locker room and there were comments and games….I thought the players were joking around.”
Sainz is a reporter for the Mexican television network Azteca. She is also a former Miss Spain. Not being from these parts, she probably had no clue that Americans have abandoned humor for victimology.
Once her colleagues who worship at the altar of victimology got hold of her, they gave Sainz what they consider the real skinny: That wasn’t amicable jesting Sainz was subjected to, but sexual harassment.
So, according to the Daily Mail story, Joanne Gerstner of the Association for Women in Sports Media got involved. National Football League bigwigs have promised “an investigation.” Jets owner Woody Johnson issued some pious drivel about “expecting all members of the Jets organization to conduct themselves in a professional manner at all times.”
Fine and dandy. Now here’s something else Johnson and NFL honchos can do: Demand that journalists who want to interview their players DRESS professionally at all times. Sainz, in a Tweet, claimed she was.
“Jeans and a white button-up blouse are in no way inappropriate,” Sainz said, according to the Daily Mail.
Oh, they are, Ines; they very much are. I can hear the feminists – the ones who can’t and won’t distinguish genuine sexual harassment from a harmless compliment – now, howling that I’m blaming the victim and that what I’m doing is comparable to saying a woman who dresses provocatively and then gets raped was somehow asking for it. But that’s not even an apples and oranges comparison; it’s an apples and hand grenades comparison.
I’m old enough to remember when sports journalists who interviewed professional athletes in the dressing room wore dress suits, white shirts and ties. Yes, they were all men then, but the standard was a good one, and it’s worth reviving today.
If the NFL had a policy that male sports journalists have to wear suits and ties and women have to wear dress skirts or slacks, Sainz may have been spared the indignity even she didn’t know she was subjected to.
If Sainz wants to be treated like a professional, she should dress like one.
Examiner columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated journalist who lives in Baltimore.
