Let’s Talk About Men

“Kid, you should be home baking chocolate chip cookies. You’re taking a job away from a man who needs to support his family.”

I had a co-worker, a veteran sports writer, who used to say this to me frequently at my first newspaper job. His voice had a barking quality, but he was pretty approachable on the whole.

This same man, probably about 30–40 years my senior, also brought me with him to an elite tennis event in Princeton and dispatched me to get quotes from Martina Navratilova while he wrote on deadline. I also accompanied him to Mets and Yankees games, once to an Old-Timers’ Day where he unleashed me into the locker rooms to interview Tracy Stallard and Al Downing so I could write a story on what it was like to give up a famous home run.

This was in the 1980s and I share it now because we are in a moment. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a positive moment. I keep wanting to speak out about it, but it is difficult to separate my history, our history, from what is happening now. So maybe let’s just use it to get some context.

That veteran sports writer helped shape my career despite his archaic, sexist comments. If he said that same thing to a female colleague in 2019 he’d be called on it and probably be in deep trouble. And while I know that’s a good thing, please indulge me in trying to process some ambivalence.