Criminal Minds

Well, last week's due date found me asleep at the keyboard, so I wasn't able to get my post in on time. You'd think I'd learn, but nope, once again, here I am, Friday night, typing up another blog post. At least I'm awake this time.

And I return with yet another crime show. Unlike most crime shows, which use evidence, mostly from the crime scene, to piece together what happened, the characters of Criminal Minds study the suspect's behaviors and their psychological connotations to try and predict his or her next move. This week's killer turned out to be a woman, more specifically, a high-class prostitute, so naturally I had to jump at this chance.

The killer uses her position to mete out her own form of justice to men who abandon their families and get away with it since they have the money and power to make it all just go away. What is prostitution, though, but an epitomical demonstration of sexual hierarchy? While the man lives his life out in the open and participates in the social world, the woman takes "the side elevator" to get where she's going and does her work behind closed doors. Not even the criminal realm of illegal activity can escape the influence of traditional gender roles.

Throughout the episode, the team takes into account that this is a woman they are dealing with, and change their thinking accordingly. Knowing that the suspect is a female, they rule out the possibility that the killings could be for sexual reasons, because women are too good for that, right? That or they just aren't driven like men are by sexual desires. Therefore, she obviously must be killing the men for some emotional reason, because women are Oh So Emotional! Well what do you know, their killer plays right into it.

Because that's just the way life is.

Did you guys miss me? 'Cause I sure did.

Well, this is nice. We get to write this week's blog posts on Girlfight, which we watched in class. It stars Michelle Rodriguez, who went on to appear in the ABC series Lost, before it got...well, I'll let you finish that one, I'm sure you're just as tired of that joke as I am.

This turned out to be a great fit as my previous post dealt with women in contact sports. And what sport could better sum up the essence of contact sports than boxing? The film has Rodriguez's character, Diana Guzman, training to become a boxer in a world where boys are taught not to hit girls. When she finally becomes skilled enough to compete, she has no choice but to go up against boys, since there are so few female boxers.

Diana tires of the hype and attention that came of her entering the ring, as she "just wants to box." Today, there are many women who just want to be able to play sports just like men do. Maybe many see a push toward equal gender representation in sports as a way to cause a scene or get publicity. It would be a very quick transition indeed if our generation could break the trend and stop making such a big deal out of this. However, with gender lines imprinted so heavily onto our way of life, this is far from an easy task. We would have to change our views that were given to us at an early age, something many are reluctant to do.

Super Bowl XLIII

This past Sunday we witnessed the forty-third iteration of the biggest event in sports, the Super Bowl. I found this perfect for this week's blog, because, well, there were no women playing. Of course, women can't play on the same field as men because of safety and other reasons. However, this does not negate the fact that most sports in general, especially those of great physical exertion, have always been associated with men. Steps are being taken in the right direction, as women's leagues are forming, though they struggle to stay alive.

So why, seeing other sports such as soccer and basketball make progress in women's competitive sports, is football taking so long to change? Could it be that the sport is famous and people are afraid that change will drive away some of its popularity? Could it be football's root in a male dominated traditional way of life? Maybe people haven't seen women as capable of performing in such a contact-based sport. Whatever the reasons have been through the years, it's highly unlikely that sports like football will stay male exclusive for much longer, even if much longer happens to be fifty or even a hundred years. I'd count on it being much sooner, though.