For many years, I’ve been annoyed by an example of The Emperor’s New Clothes — something that seems totally absurd to me, and yet is either unnoticed by thousands of others or else not commented upon for fear of repercussions.
I’m speaking of the athletic department of the University of Buffalo (aka SUNY-Buffalo). Now, while the men’s sports teams of this institution are nicknamed, appropriately enough, the “Bulls,” the women’s sport teams are nicknamed, improbably enough, the “Lady Bulls.”
This is a wonderful example of how, in the Potemkin Village world of Academia, words and the concepts they represent become hopelessly mangled by politically-correct ideology.
I’ll walk readers through this slowly and carefully — not for the benefit of, say, farmers, butchers, truck drivers, short-order cooks and others familiar with livestock on a practical level — but rather with the educated folks far removed from the realities of the natural world (including biology professors) who happily cheer on the “Lady Bulls,” to all appearances blissfully unaware of just how ludicrous this nickname really is.
* First, as any farm girl is well aware, bulls are male — period. Simply put, in zoological terms: male bovine = bull; female bovine = cow.
* Second, as is obvious to most anyone over the age of eight or so (except, evidently, university-educated folk), a “Lady” is by definition a human being, and therefore cannot be a four-legged animal. It seems particularly ironic that academic feminists, otherwise so sensitive to linguistic objectification and debasement of women, would give this a pass.
Here, it’s difficult for an admittedly Old-School guy to refrain from invoking the Freudian theory of penis envy. But of course Freud has been sniffed away by modern academics as hopelessly misguided, versus the New Gods of Modern Psychoanalytic Theory such as the Jacques Brothers, Lacan and Derrida, who would never have dreamed of suggesting such a thing. Then again, I doubt if either of them ever checked out any female basketball players, either.
Just Plain Folks, however, certainly have, as witnessed by a Yahoo discussion thread pondering the question “Why are women’s basketball players [sic] … so masculine looking?” Or consider the predicament of one blogger, a former University of Texas basketball player. While attempting to debunk this prevailing perception, she was nonetheless forced to concede that “80% of the female ball players I know ARE Lesbian, masculine, and are not the most attractive girls . …”!
And finally, there’s the case of a George Washington University basketball player, who — in spite of not having any surgery or hormone treatments — simply decided that she was really a man, made a name change (from Kay-Kay to Kye), and then proceeded to go play for the men’s basketball team. And the school, as well as the NCAA, meekly went along with this travesty! All I can say is that must make for a very interesting situation when the team is dressing in the locker room before games — and taking their showers after.
But I digress . . .
To return, then, to the matter at hand: of course I realize that UB’s womens teams could not possibly consider nicknaming themselves the “Cows” — an equally strained attempt to bookend the men’s teams that would be far more sneer-inducing. Naturally, other feminine animal names such as Does, Mares, Hens, and Ewes — to say nothing of Bitches — aren’t viable, either. All I’m suggesting is that they carry either a gender-neutral animal nickname (e.g. Tigers, Panthers … Cougars?), or else a feminine nickname that truly is, in fact, feminine (e.g. Falcons, Vixen … Cougars?)
To convey sheer ferocity, how about the She-Wolves? Or perhaps, to appeal to more refined sensibilities, the Chantelles? The possibilities are numerous, but in any case “Lady Bulls” ought to be put out to pasture.
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