Men's Health Fields Backlash For 'Misogynistic' Article
A Men's Health article on how to talk to women about sports got people talking all right -- but not in the way the outlet intended.
Titled "The Secret to Talking Sports with Any Woman," the article -- which has since been removed -- asserts that most women require "story lines" to enjoy a sporting event. Wrote author Teresa Sabga:
“Most women don’t care about stats,” says Andrei Markovits, Ph.D., coauthor of "Sportista: Female Fandom in the United States." So while you’re enthusing about Dominic Moore’s scoring record, she’d rather hear about how he supported his wife’s battle with cancer—and even took a season off from the NHL at the height of his career. Treat your heroes as people and not just players on a field, and you’ll suck her in.
It was quickly ruled a fumble.
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"Stop publishing condescending, misogynistic crap as click-bait," one female reader wrote on the site.
Another sniped, "Have any stats to support your claims? Oh sorry I'm a lady and don't care about stats. Let me get back in the kitchen."
Many on Twitter took offense as well, Uproxx noted.
lol this is pathetic #clickbaitfail RT @MensHealthMag:She sees the game differently than you. http://t.co/4zJiDjEgIj http://t.co/iU3I0GSDBS
— Virginia Pham (@veephambam) October 7, 2014
@rgay @MensHealthMag But words are hard! Especially the math-y ones :( Stats are for boys! pic.twitter.com/neDMBtrAs8
— Dr. Cristina Stasia (@CristinaStasia) October 7, 2014
And our favorite:
hi @MensHealthMag, you don't know me, but i run @ESPNMag's annual analytics issue. also, i have a vagina!
— Megan Greenwell (@megreenwell) October 6, 2014
Men's Health didn't fare much better when it tried to promote the story on Twitter with an image that read "How to talk about sports with women."
Appearing on "Today" Tuesday morning, editor in chief Bill Phillips called the tweet "insulting' and a "mistake." The tweet was later deleted, and the magazine issued an apology for running the article:
Apologies for our “talk sports with her” story. It missed the mark and the negative feedback is justified. We've deleted it. [part 1]
— Men's Health Mag (@MensHealthMag) October 7, 2014
It wasn’t meant to suggest that women are in any way inferior to men, in sports, or anything else. But … we’re sorry that it did. [part 2]
— Men's Health Mag (@MensHealthMag) October 7, 2014
See Phillips address the controversy below:
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.