Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and sports advocacy (Part 4)

This blog post is part 4 of a series dicussing my experiences with Facebook, Myspace and Twitter as they relate to  advocacy issues that highly affect the women’s sport sphere. This is an assignment for a class I’m enrolled in as part of John’s Hopkins University’s Digital Communications program.

The theme of this week’s post is “learn from example.” Because our female sports feminist sisters seem to “have it together” politically, I went searching for a good site which asks readers to take action on Twitter, MySpace or Facebook. Immediately, I found one: Women’s Voices. Women Vote.

It’s a simple site that was clearly created around getting women to register to vote during the 2008 Presidential election. But beyond the seemingly “expired” nature of the content, they have a unique presence in YouTube (13 videos, page which is unbranded – not bad), MySpace (customized page with 33 friends – kindof low, but clearly shows widgets and publicizes videos), and Facebook (345 fans, but a blank wall). Seems to me like they got their basics down. They just needed a little help with public engagement.

Fair pay and athletics: The gender disparities continue to loom

This post is part of an initiative by the National Women’s Law Center in honor of Equal Pay Day — “voices are rising up across the web in support of fair pay for women.” All day, they’ll be promoting blog posts about fair pay and tweets with the hashtag #fairpay.

The reason today is Equal Pay Day: April 28, 2009 marks the day when the average woman’s wages will finally catch up with those paid to the average man in 2008 (note – that was last year). Here’s where you can find state-by-state data on the wage gap.

So what can you to help? Well, if you’re a blogger, register here and blog about it. If you’re not (or you don’t want to), then urge your Senators to support the Paycheck Fairness Act.

In keeping with my theme, I wanted to share some interesting information about fair pay in athletics. Some may think that these days, women get paid “very similar” or even “close to” men. But that’s hardly the case, as you can see… Read more

Male/female soccer game in Iran sparks attention, punishment

When I read about this yesterday, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

On January 20, Iran held its a mixed soccer game – the first of its kind – since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The game was intended to be a secret – but some cell phone footage was leaked, and punishments were handed to three Iranian soccer club officials.

Check out this AP article for more.

The Jan. 20 game between the club’s female team and its youth male team in Tehran was the first time in the 30 years of Iran’s Islamic establishment that males and females played soccer together, observers said.

The youth team beat the women 7-0 in a game Vatan-e-Emrooz described as ‘historic.’

According to this Fox soccer news article, Iran’s strict Islamic rules ban any physical contact between unrelated men and women, and Iranian women are even banned from attending soccer games when male teams play.

Surprisingly, my colleagues on the male sports blogs covered this story, led by Sports by Brooks:

“Women’s soccer has only recently been widely accepted in Iran. A national women’s team was formed in 2005, but already has had some success in Asia, nearly qualifying for last year’s Asian Cup finals. As you can see from the photo above, the Iranian players have to wear long sleeves, pants, and a head scarf. And home matches are attended only by women.”

It followed with a link from Ball Hype. I’m shocked – they don’t usually cover women’s sports.

The officials of the game – a coach and two managers – first denied the game took place, but video clips on cell phones of the game were used as evidence against them.

This story (and subsequent research) has challenged me to write a series about Muslim women and sports.

So look for more to come..

“Football Under Cover”: Documentary about women’s football (soccer) in Iran

A new documentary (released this year) discusses the reality of women’s soccer players in Iran.

The plot: An amateur female soccer team from Berlin goes on a nerve-wracking journey trying to carry out the first female soccer match in the history of Iran. And it happens in front of over 1,000 cheering female fans.

According to Cinema Without Borders, Football Under Cover won two prizes in Berlin film festival, The TEDDY for the Best Documentary Film and VOLKSWAGEN Audience Award.

This documentary has been capturing attention across continents. For example, check out this NPR article. Also, popular soccer blog, The Global Game has even featured information about this movie.

Can anyone figure out where we can see it? I’d love to view this.

Check out the trailer below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyMc0bW_b8M

Female athletes and ACL injuries: preventable?

If you are a female and you played sports through puberty and beyond, changes are pretty good that you either suffered an ACL injury or some of your teammates did.

A recent NCAA report says that females are two and a half to four times more likely to tear their ACLs then men. And new research says it’s preventable.

Luckily, I never suffered one of these awful injuries. But many of my old teammates did – all the way through both high school and college. Many of them found themselves sitting on the sidelines watching for at least six months, along with weeks of excruciating therapy and a huge knee brace slapped on their legs.

But how (exactly) is it fair that the ACL injury (for the most part) seems to target women? Turns out, when women hit puberty, we have a different way of landing on our knees than our male counterparts. (Has to do with hormones and the way our bodies change).

But here’s the exciting part: Researchers recently have figured out a training regimen to prevent this from happening. That’s right – prevention, and it all comes down to neuromuscular training that our bodies need to learn at an early age.

From NCAA,

“Boys are running around and athletic and are being trained from a neuromuscular perspective early on and women are later to get into that, and they never develop the same neuromuscular training as boys do even if they’re incredible athletes,” says Dr. Craig Levitz, chairman of the Department of Orthopedics, Orthopedic Surgery and director of sports medicine at South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside, New York.

While Levitz says neuromuscular training programs that teach the muscles how to protect the knee are critical for girls, they don’t seem to be necessary for boys.

“For some reason, that’s something that seems ingrained in the male genetics and has to be learned in the female genetics,” Levitz says.

Apparently, implementing programs that target young female athletes is key.

The NCAA Web site, the ACL Feature – where I got all of this information – is an incredible step in the right direciton. They’re utilizing social media to tell us exactly how the injury happens and how we can prevent it. It utilizes flash media, audio and video – I highly encourage you to check it out and pass it along.

It’s very promising to see the NCAA not only taking an interest in female sports injuries, but also utilizing new social media platforms (and even message boards!) to encourage discussion and the expansion of knowledge about injury prevention.

Great job NCAA!