I can't wait to go up into an Ivory tower, stick my fingers in my ears and go LA LA LA LA.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Too Nice for This
I'm not cut out to be a real journalist so I guess it's good I'm going into Academia soon. I'm not good at being mean and I actually cringe to think of some of the nice people I've interviewed reading it and thinking, "BITCH!" If there's legitimate criticism I'm pretty cool, but I would hate for some one to feel I misrepresented them. And even if I'm true to a T, there's the whole, that was a lovely chat and LIES LIES LIES.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Damn!
I'm back in the States. It is somewhat strange. More on that later.
In writing an article on women and sports in Syria, I used the football team I played with/limped alongside of last spring. I also met the younger girls' team and interviewed a bunch of players, the administrator, and the coach. They are awesome, but unfortunately the article I was doing was short and focused mostly in another direction so I couldn't go into them.
I thought hmmm, I should propose this later. The girls' team started 3 years ago when the administrator and the coach went around to recruit girls. They had a lot of girls who wanted to play but parents wouldn't let them. The coach and admin went to homes to try to convince the parents that playing wouldn't damage their girls' bodies or things of that nature. While a lot of sports, volleyball are basketball included, are normal and widespread for girls, football is still mostly considered a boys' sport and too rough for the ladies.
Every summer teams from 8 governorates meet in Aleppo to have their tournament and the Damascus ladies have won it all three years of its existance.
I thought it would be awesome to go to this tournament and chat with the girls and coaches from other places in Syria and see if they had similar experiences, writing a piece about the tenative expansion of girls' sports to football. I imagined this would be a happy, positive piece with a lot of plucky sporty girls who worship Michael Ballack. I thought it would be interesting to pitch to a foriegn publication as it 1) shows a different face of Syria than what most Amerricans see and 2) would both dispel some myths that exist about Syrian (read: Muslim/Arab cause it's all the same really, right?) with the fact that many Syrian girls do sports, but also have that "happy social change/confronting gender stereotypes" angle with the fact that football specifically is a rather new sport for girls (versus your karate or swimming).
So yeah, fuck you New York Times: In Turkey, Women Playing Soccer Vie for Acceptance.
Okay, so it's about the professionals. But funny how there's establish women's pro basketball and volleyball leagues but football? New and not for the ladies but look these ladies are doing it and kicking ass and changing minds! Oh Turkey, you steal my time with your soaps that I can't watch now from the States, and my ideas for rah rah lady sports pieces. Poo.
In writing an article on women and sports in Syria, I used the football team I played with/limped alongside of last spring. I also met the younger girls' team and interviewed a bunch of players, the administrator, and the coach. They are awesome, but unfortunately the article I was doing was short and focused mostly in another direction so I couldn't go into them.
I thought hmmm, I should propose this later. The girls' team started 3 years ago when the administrator and the coach went around to recruit girls. They had a lot of girls who wanted to play but parents wouldn't let them. The coach and admin went to homes to try to convince the parents that playing wouldn't damage their girls' bodies or things of that nature. While a lot of sports, volleyball are basketball included, are normal and widespread for girls, football is still mostly considered a boys' sport and too rough for the ladies.
Every summer teams from 8 governorates meet in Aleppo to have their tournament and the Damascus ladies have won it all three years of its existance.
I thought it would be awesome to go to this tournament and chat with the girls and coaches from other places in Syria and see if they had similar experiences, writing a piece about the tenative expansion of girls' sports to football. I imagined this would be a happy, positive piece with a lot of plucky sporty girls who worship Michael Ballack. I thought it would be interesting to pitch to a foriegn publication as it 1) shows a different face of Syria than what most Amerricans see and 2) would both dispel some myths that exist about Syrian (read: Muslim/Arab cause it's all the same really, right?) with the fact that many Syrian girls do sports, but also have that "happy social change/confronting gender stereotypes" angle with the fact that football specifically is a rather new sport for girls (versus your karate or swimming).
So yeah, fuck you New York Times: In Turkey, Women Playing Soccer Vie for Acceptance.
Okay, so it's about the professionals. But funny how there's establish women's pro basketball and volleyball leagues but football? New and not for the ladies but look these ladies are doing it and kicking ass and changing minds! Oh Turkey, you steal my time with your soaps that I can't watch now from the States, and my ideas for rah rah lady sports pieces. Poo.
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