‘Slaying the Trolls’ debunks myths of women in sports

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Women’s sports are exploding. Women’s college basketball this season saw record crowds and boffo viewership numbers. This has been an upward trend for at least four years now. Yet there still are those trolls, mostly men, who continue to subscribe to and further the myths and misinformation about women’s sports. 

“Slaying The Trolls: Why the trolls are very, very wrong about women and sports” (Kendall/Hunt Publishing) comes from co-authors and academics Nefertiti Walker and David Berri, who have studied women and sports extensively. The two present the argument and empirical evidence to demonstrate that the trolls and what they are saying “is completely inconsistent with reality,” say the book notes. 

“We started [writing] the book in 2018. It’s been a long time coming, and to be honest, we couldn’t finish the book sooner,” noted Dr. Walker in an MSR phone interview. Walker, the deputy VP for academic affairs, student affairs and equity for all four undergraduate University of Massachusetts campuses and its medical school, talked with us before on women and race issues and promised to speak with us again once the book was published.

“Slaying The Trolls” is an easy read, not academic-speak. It’s educational without browbeating the reader to death. The book is divided into three parts: 1) women can dominate sports, 2) the very unearned advantages in men’s sports, and 3) paying women what they are worth.

When asked which part she suggests readers look at first, “I would probably say part two,” said Walker. “Let’s actually talk about the ways men write mostly about men’s sports, and women’s coverage is somewhere between three to five percent routinely. 

“Let’s subsidize and invest in and support women’s sports the way that men have supported men’s sports. In a way that cities have supported men’s sports, and government entities have supported men’s sports over the years.

“Treat women’s sports the same way we treat men’s sports. Then we’ll see what happens,” said Walker. 

Our interview naturally couldn’t escape discussing the “Caitlin Clark phenomenon” that seems to have mesmerized sports media and casual fans, who have falsely credited her with women’s basketball and the WNBA’s popularity these days.

“What we’re seeing is a racialized, gendered preference,” noted Walker, “for a particular profile of player being uplifted and supported in ways that similarly generational players haven’t been.

“Caitlin Clark is a great player with a skill set that we haven’t really seen,” she pointed out of the first- year WNBA player. “She fit a particular demographic makeup that are Western American women, girl next door, woman next door. Caitlin comes along and she fits that. 

“I think what we can do is accept Caitlin’s greatness in this moment and welcome it, and also say that [other] players that are great, generationally great players like [Las Vegas’] A’ja [Wilson] who haven’t gotten the same treatment and [is] missing attention” from media, marketers, and others, added the co-author.

Walker says “Slaying The Trolls” is the perfect educational primer for sports fans and non-sports fans alike to debunk long-standing myths about women and women sports.

“We were mythbusters,” said Walker of herself and co-author Berri. “This is a book that people should be able to look to over and over again. We’re going to keep updating it with fresh new data and research. 

“If you follow the sport, if you’re in the sport and you hear people say ridiculous things,” said Walker of using her book, “share it, share the data, the facts, because I think the facts are important.”