Nearly a century ago, Melissa Ludtke went to federal court to do her job.
Today, 43 years after major league baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn was taught he might not save him from leaving the New York Yankees, Ludtke still worries about the situation of women in the sport, especially in the media.
“I think women who play today have more difficulties than I do,” said Ludtke, who was 27 and worked for Sports Illustrated in September 1978, when a district court ruled that denying Ludtke the same access to the clubhouse that newsmen liked violated 14th Equal Protection of the Amendment before the law.
“At that moment, if you wanted to tell me something, you had to say it. When I compare it to now, I haven’t gained any death threats. I’ve won cards. It’s not fun. It hurts me. But it’s nothing compared to what those women are seeing now.
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That includes threatening and vile missives on social media and, more recently, the 62 consecutive text messages, some of them in particular, that a foreign journalist won in 2016 from baseball executive Jared Porter, then chicago Cubs exploration director.
Porter eventually rose through the ranks of the New York Mets general manager until the reporter he harassed presented far-reaching evidence of his abusive and obscene behavior.
Porter fired on January 19, just 37 days after being named GM Mets, a quick fix that created a sense of tolerance for such a habit is minimal.
Ludtke, now retired and with what she says is her most recent book, can see the common thread of micro and macro aggressions she faced when entering the company and the situations that created Porter’s situation.
Certainly, Ludtke had a hard time, first and foremost he was forbidden to do his job, in the face of friendly shots from his newsmates and accusations that he was looking to access the locker room just to look at the men.
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“Because of their work, they have to be on social media,” Ludtke said of today’s women in the media. “You’re covering a rhythm, you have to have a Twitter. So yes, I read the tweets, daunting.
“And for what?Is that enough for other people to need you to die, to be raped?Really? You laugh or cry, one or the other. But it ends up wreaking havoc and I don’t think there’s a woman out there who doesn’t say she’s wreaking havoc. “
It’s a paradox, as we’re making significant progress in male-dominated industry spaces, whether as NFL position coaches, NBA assistants or as primary league coaches or minor league strike coordinators.
And then Kim Ng, hired through the Miami Marlins in December as the baseball league’s first female general manager, after dozens of interviews over three decades.
While Ng’s hiring has been hailed as a historic occasion for women in sport, her many criticisms have probably reinforced an unstable, even dangerous environment for those looking to break into fronts, news boxes and public relations services.
“Hiring women like ADG can be a smart position to start with,” Ludtke says. “A team understood. It took nearly 4 decades for (Ng) to perceive this. She had a lot of skill and a lot of interviews, but she only recently took her to her hiring, but why not?When you have a minority of women who are considered, through the other people in power, inferior, that puts those women in vulnerable positions.
“We know that. We know that sexual harassment isn’t about sex yet about strength and control. I think it’s a position to get there. Otherwise, it turns out that it will continue, in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, in the creation of video games. There are no undeniable answers. “
Porter’s account of his internal struggle – difficulty sleeping, guilt and eventual return to his own country and the next departure from the company – sounded familiar to Ludtke. Today, women can search organizations like the Women in Sport Association. Media and also identify allies on the same social media channels that cause so much poison to emerge.
Porter’s victim, new to the United States, would probably not have easily accessed those supports and admits she was suspicious because of the more progressive attitude towards women here than in her local country.
“I need to tell you: it’s still happening here, ” said Ludtke. ” There might be a women’s empowerment movement, but it can still take place, there can be two things. When academics are asked why women don’t stay” in the industry for so long, they’ll tell you, it’s the culture of the newsroom and social media that they can’t stay with.
“They ask, why do I deserve to do this job?
And maximum outings mean the loss of livelihoods and a hobby for life. Ludtke grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, the daughter of teachers, and added a mother raised in the shadow of Fenway Park who marked the Red Sox radio games and documented their seasons on albums.
That’s why Ludtke calls his career “a legacy” in terms of vocation.
Decades later, the battlefield has changed.
In Ludtke’s time, before the courts and legislation: the adoption of Title IX in 1972; Maria Pepe’s 1973 lawsuit against minor league baseball after a ban on playing; Billie Jean King fighting the USTA for an equivalent salary in 1973.
A few years later, Ludtke, whose legal victory allowed women after her to practice their profession.
However, the following years have shown that legislation prevents target poles from moving, nor can they exhume workplace toxicity. Women fought through the right channels. The duty of a more significant replacement is now elsewhere.
“I’ll also say that in some tactics I did what women did in the 1970s: I went to court and replaced the law,” she said. “What has been harder to replace for decades is attitudes. That’s what he finds out: he’s celebrating legal victory and it’s “Well, they gave us everything!”
“No, you didn’t. Not until attitudes change.