Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Karen Bailis

You’ve come a long way, baby.

But not without your blush, eyeliner and lipstick.

No matter if you can dribble and drive with the best of them. Or have two consecutive NCAA championships to your name. Or you’ve out-dunked the boys -- back when you were in high school.

Your cuts to the basket might be divine, but as a woman athlete you must cut a goddess-like image to get noticed.

And that’s what the WNBA is telling its rookies: You want to get noticed, you gotta wear makeup.

Yep, baby, there’s still a long way to go.

As part of the WNBA’s two-day rookie orientation at a Chicago hotel, the basketball phenoms for the first time were offered hourlong sessions on makeup application and fashion, the Chicago Tribune reports. The orientation also addressed finances and fitness and nutrition.

Sadly, this is what it’s come to. The WNBA, which wouldn’t know a creative marketing move if it were slam-dunked in its face, is relying on sex appeal to generate interest in the best women basketball players in the world. The tactic isn’t new. The league has been using its “Have You Seen Her” campaign, which features top players on the court and off, looking sexy and glam. Before that, it was “This Is Who I Am.”

And it sickens every fiber of my feminist being to say I’d be all for it if I thought it would work. I’d take nearly anything to turn around slumping attendance figures. If seeing a dolled-up Candace Parker will put butts in the seats at every arena she plays in, break out the blush!

But c’mon, the reason ticket sales for the LA Sparks are up is because she’s the most dazzling player to come out of college in a long time, and she’s about to join arguably the best veteran, Lisa Leslie.

The pairing should be a marketing -- and a fan’s -- dream.

But instead, Parker, the nation’s No. 1 pick and two-time NCAA champ, is talking makeup.

“I think it’s very important. I’m the type who likes to put on basketball shorts and a white T, but I love to dress up and wear makeup,” she said in the Chicago Tribune. “But as time goes on, I think (looks) will be less and less important.”

There’s nothing wrong with wearing a little makeup and dressing up off the court. But any player worth her high-tops wants to be known less for her looks than her no-looks.

Let’s call the emphasis on players’ appearance what it is: sexism and homophobia.

The WNBA’s push for pretty is applying makeup -- concealer, if you will -- to gloss over the unsightly blemish of the perception of the league as a bunch of lesbians. As if handing out lists to the media of the moms in the league and emphasizing the players who have husbands or boyfriends weren’t obvious enough tactics.

Just the mere staying power of the league is a testament to these women as athletes and individuals. Don’t take away their legitimacy by falling prey to stereotypes.

“Once you begin to worry about how the person looks as opposed to how she plays, you've crossed the line into dangerous play,” said Susan Ziegler, a Cleveland State professor of sports psychology. “We’re not really focused on marketing them as athletes but as feminine objects.”

Yeah, players wear makeup on the court, too. Four-time WNBA champ Tina Thompson, known for her bright red lipstick, says she wears the stuff as a sort of armor going into battle. And Leslie’s new autobiography, “Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You” describes the pride she takes in her self-described feminine appearance. But she also makes clear that she lets her game speak for itself. And it has spoken: She has three Olympic gold medals and two WNBA championships and is a three-time league MVP.

Let the women’s games do the talking.