Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas has offered up a two-point plan for increasing the popularity of women’s basketball: skimpier uniforms and more traditionally attractive players.
The three-time All-Star posted a sexist Instagram video on Tuesday showing two fitness models playing one-on-one, suggesting that “ugly” WNBA players “looking like cast members from [Orange is the New Black]” have turned off fans from the world’s top women’s basketball league.
“NOW this is what america was hoping for when they announced the #WNBA back in 1996… not a bunch of chicks running around looking like,cast members from#orangeisthenewblack,” Arenas wrote in the caption accompanying the video. “[D]ont get me wrong,they have few #cutiepies but theres a whole alotta #beanpies running around”.
Aware of the backlash his sexist remarks would invite, he added: “if u think this is sexist,9 times out of 10 u the ugly one and we didnt pay to come see u play anyway”.
Arenas doubled down on his comments on Wednesday, suggesting that men who disagreed with his vision for a sexualized WNBA were gay.
“#Basketball has the lowest views by men BECUZ their mimicking MEN,” he wrote in a follow-up post. “#Basketballchicks has some of the best bodies in women sports #Lesbians or #str8 we can give two shits about what they prefer in the bedroom becuz men prefer #assandtitties and last time I checked theres 20 total titties and 10 asses running around but for some odd reason were not getting it..what were getting is #tats #dreads #highsocks #baggyshorts #elbowpads..sounds like MEN attire to me..this sport will continue to be less viewed and under paid compared to other female sports”.
He added: “theres a reason 7 out of the top 10 highest paid women athletes come from tennis #Skirts and #ass.....if the #NBA got rid of the thug imagine for global viewing SHOULDNT you?? I dont care if u dont like the truth becuz MEN DON’T WANNA WATCH WOMEN ACT LIKE MEN..if they came out with an all #gay man sport..I bet they will wear less clothes then the #WNBA and thats a #FACT lol NOW GIVE US WHAT WE WANT and unveil them bodies...SEXINESS RUNS THIS WORLD.”
WNBA/NBA Statement Regarding Gilbert Arenas' Comments pic.twitter.com/yZ8Nga6weZ
— WNBA (@WNBA) December 16, 2015
The league released a statement on Wednesday condemning Arenas’ comments as “repugnant, utterly disrespectful and flat-out wrong”.
Several prominent WNBA players decried the remarks, among them Elena Delle Donne of the Chicago Sky, who was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player last season.
“Women were not put on this earth just for men to look at,” Delle Donne wrote on Twitter. “We are people. We have a purpose. We are role models. I am an athlete first and foremost.”
Ivory Latta, a two-time All-Star point guard with the Washington Mystics, called Arenas a non-factor desperate to remain in the limelight.
“[He] clearly wants y’all attention,” Latta tweeted. “So y’all please entertain that BeanPie looking dude. He’s not even worth our time.”
Connecticut Sun forward Camille Little took a different approach, tweeting photos of her feminine figure “4 all the ppl who think ... the players look like men”.
Arenas, who last played in the NBA in 2012 before a one-year stint with the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association, averged 20.7 points in 11 seasons with the Golden State Warriors, Washington Wizards and Memphis Grizzlies. He missed nearly all of the 2009-10 season due to a locker-room conflagration over a gambling debt that saw handguns drawn, an episode that effectively derailed both his career and a Wizards club then on the rise.
Suddenly, Sepp Blatter’s ideas on boosting the popularity of women’s soccer, which courted the same ugly stereotype about female athletes, appear tactful. In 2004, the then-president of Fifa suggested that more revealing uniforms would “promote a more female aesthetic” and raise the popularity of women’s soccer.
“Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” Blatter said. “They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men - such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?”
