It takes less than a day, sometimes even less than an hour, for a marginally ill-advised comment by a celebrity to spark outrage in all parts of the world. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be a celebrity; just about anyone who dares to contradict popular belief is suddenly regarded as the spawn of the devil, as the personification of all things evil.
It would have been funny if it wasn’t so damaging. How long will it take for the world to realize that brow-beating and chest-thumping over imagined slights to women will harm the feminist cause instead of propagating it?
Yes, John McEnroe probably shouldn’t have said Serena Williams would be ranked No. 700 on the men’s tour. He should have diplomatically refused to answer the question. Better still, he should have said that there’s no point comparing men’s tennis with women’s. But being diplomatic has never been McEnroe’s strongest suit, and that wasn’t about to change while he was in the midst of promoting his new book.
The backlash his comments inspired was both monumental and predictable. He was even asked to apologize for his words, which he didn’t. But was any of the criticism justified? Let’s look at the facts:
Fact #1: McEnroe didn’t bring up the comparison himself; he was forced to do so
Before we get into the criminality or otherwise of McEnroe’s comments, it’s important to note that he didn’t start the debate of his own accord. In the now-infamous NPR interview, he was clearly prodded and persuaded to wade into controversial territory by the host Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
Here’s how the exchange went:
Garcia-Navarro: We're talking about male players but there is of course wonderful female players. Let's talk about Serena Williams. You say she is the best female player in the world in the book.
McEnroe: Best female player ever – no question.
Garcia-Navarro: Some wouldn't qualify it, some would say she's the best player in the world. Why qualify it?
McEnroe: Oh! Uh, she's not, you mean, the best player in the world, period?
Garcia-Navarro: Yeah, the best tennis player in the world. You know, why say female player?
McEnroe: Well because if she was in, if she played the men's circuit she'd be like 700 in the world.
Garcia-Navarro: You think so?
McEnroe: Yeah. That doesn't mean I don't think Serena is an incredible player. I do, but the reality of what would happen would be I think something that perhaps it'd be a little higher, perhaps it'd be a little lower. And on a given day, Serena could beat some players. I believe because she's so incredibly strong mentally that she could overcome some situations where players would choke 'cause she's been in it so many times, so many situations at Wimbledon, The U.S. Open, etc. But if she had to just play the circuit — the men's circuit – that would be an entirely different story.
In Garcia-Navarro’s defense, she didn’t berate McEnroe for anything that he said; she let him speak his mind, without drawing any conclusions. But as you can see from McEnroe’s involvement in the conversation, he’s not a raving misogynist who’s hell-bent on shoving his archaic thoughts down everyone’s throats.
He was simply asked a question – a very loaded question at that – which he answered to the best of his knowledge.
Fact #2: There’s a reason why men and women play on different tours
The Battle of the Sexes match is an iconic event in tennis history, so much so that they are even making a movie on it.
But as a simple trip down memory lane shows (even the trailer above is a decent enough history lesson), Billie Jean King did not play Bobby Riggs in his prime. She was 29 years old at the time of the match, while Riggs was 55.
If we were to replace King and Riggs with today’s players, it’d be the equivalent of the 30-year-old Novak Djokovic (who incidentally has won the same number of Majors as King) competing against the 52-year-old Mats Wilander. Would Wilander get even one game off Djokovic?
There have been other stunts like the 1973 Battle of the Sexes over the years, but none of those can be used to draw any kind of reasonable conclusion. There was always some caveat or the other thrown in; either the male player was much older, or the rules were tweaked to favour the woman (like the Jimmy Connors vs Martina Navratilova match in 1992).
It’s almost as though everyone knows the truth, but no one is willing to come out in the open and say it. Men and women have very different biological characteristics, which give men certain insurmountable advantages in an athletic pursuit like tennis.
Some might question the credibility of such a statement, and demand empirical evidence to support it. Fortunately, we don’t have to delve entirely into the hypothetical realm for that; Serena and Venus actually played a male pro named Karsten Braasch back in 1998.
The results were exactly as expected: Braasch defeated Serena 6-1 and Venus 6-2, without so much as breaking a sweat.
Bear in mind that Braasch was ranked No. 203 on the men’s tour at the time. Is it such a stretch to imagine that a man ranked 403, or maybe even 603, would also be able to defeat Serena? Neither sister ever asked for a rematch, or even for a match against a lower-ranked player than Braasch.
Fact #3: Serena’s baby has nothing to do with being ranked 700th in the world
Serena is not one to be coy about her feelings, and she wasted little time in responding to the controversy.
Most publications gleefully lapped up the tweet, declaring to anyone who cared that Serena had ‘put McEnroe in his place’ and that she had checked McEnroe after his ‘belittling comments’. There were others who smugly pointed out that men wouldn’t rank anywhere near the top 700 when it came to giving birth.
I’m sorry, what? Tennis is a competition, but since when is giving birth a competition too? As much as I love Serena, I can’t quite fathom why there was a need for her to bring her child into the issue, or how exactly McEnroe had disrespected her privacy.
Serena is currently in the middle of a much-talked-about pregnancy, and more power to her for that. But does that mean no one is allowed to talk about her until she gives birth? Or does it go beyond that. Will she try and shush people who talk about her after she gives birth, saying that we shouldn’t disturb her while she’s trying to raise a child?
Given all that she’s been busy with, it’s possible that she didn’t know the facts before reacting. As the interview transcript clearly shows, McEnroe didn’t broach the subject of Serena until he was goaded into doing so by the interviewer. Why then did she ask McEnroe ‘to keep her out of his statements’? Maybe Serena descended on to Twitter immediately after seeing headlines that screamed, “MCENROE THINKS SERENA WOULD GET THRASHED BY THE 500TH-RANKED MALE PLAYER!”, without reading the fine print?
It’s a free world, and nobody has the right to question Serena for the way she uses her Twitter handle. But as an outspoken supporter of gender equality, the American has the power to make a real difference with her words. So it’s a shame that she chose the tried-and-failed holier-than-thou approach that has been finding favour with a lot of feminists these days.
If you take everything as an insult and react with condescension the moment someone bluntly states a fact, you won’t be taken seriously for long. McEnroe didn’t ‘belittle’ Serena by saying she’d be ranked 700th; he was merely reminding us, rather tactlessly if I may say so, that men’s and women’s tennis are two different sports.
Of course Serena is the greatest female player in the world, and of course Roger Federer (or Rod Laver / Rafael Nadal / Pete Sampras / whoever you wish to nominate) is the greatest male player in the world. Calling either of them ‘the greatest, period’ is wrong. Instead of attacking McEnroe for his comments, we should be reminding everyone else to specify ‘male’ when talking about Federer or Nadal or Laver.
And even that is merely in the interest of being politically correct. When you call Michael Phelps the greatest swimmer, everyone knows you are talking about male players. When you call Simone Biles the greatest gymnast, it is implied that you are comparing her with female gymnasts.
Serena may be more dominant in her field than Federer is, but that doesn’t mean she is a greater player than him – or that she should even be compared with him. They don’t play in the same draws, they don’t compete against the same players, and they definitely don’t face off against each other.
Saying that McEnroe’s comments are insulting to Serena or to women is justified only as far as we also accept that the question posed to McEnroe was an insult to his sensibilities. We shouldn’t ask a question that we know we won’t like the answer to.
Feminism is an extremely important movement, and any effort spent on eradicating gender inequality is a step in the right direction. But when we spend hours and days lambasting people for their ‘offensive’ comments which aren’t really offensive, we risk alienating the very people who need to be brought into the fold.
When someone makes a politically incorrect statement, telling him that he is the scum of the earth can’t possibly achieve anything. Nobody likes a bully, and more importantly, nobody wants to learn from a bully. We need to educate and elaborate, not disparage and deride.
Interestingly, the only person making a good buck out of this is probably McEnroe himself. When you are launching a book, any publicity is good publicity. Did McEnroe play all of us?
It would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad.
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