By Rafael R. Díaz Torres

Of the Daily Sun staff

rdiaz@prdailysun.net

As the Puerto Rico Legislature debates possible reforms to its composition and structure, an unexpected, but unsurprising issue surfaced last week when partisan politics spilled over into sports with two controversial Senate resolutions congratulating the Puerto Rico men’s national basketball team for winning the gold medal in the recent Pan American Games held in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Beyond the heavily covered controversy that surrounded the approval of a “congratulating” resolution presented by New Progressive Party Sen. Roger Iglesias, after a similar resolution filed by Popular Democratic Party Sen. Juan Eugenio Hernández Mayoral was rejected by the NPP majority, the historic gold-medal triumphs of both men's and women's basketball teams from Puerto Rico invites us to analyze how gender makes a difference in how lawmakers and the news media treat sports victories. 

Right after the respective gold-medal triumphs, NPP majority senators approved separate resolutions to congratulate each team for their athletic accomplishment in the Pan American Games. Both resolutions were presented by Iglesias.  

However, and despite the similarities in terms of intention and authorship of the document, the language and gender codes employed in each senatorial resolution were different.  

On the one hand, S.R. 2423 had the purpose of “expressing the warmest congratulation and recognition from the Puerto Rico Senate to the Women’s National Basketball Team for its heroic feat after winning gold in the women’s basketball tournament of the XVI Pan American Games held in Guadalajara, México from October 14th to 31st.”

On the other hand, S.R. 2436 had the purpose of “expressing the warmest congratulation and recognition from the Puerto Rico Senate to the Puerto Rico National Basketball Team after winning the gold medal in the XVI Pan American Games held in Guadalajara, México from October 14th to 31st.”

The use of gender labels varies in each senatorial resolution. While S.R. 2423 clearly states that recognition is being proposed for the “women’s” national team for winning the “women’s” basketball tournament, S.R. 2436 avoids using the gender label and just identifies the team as the “Puerto Rico National Team” that won the gold medal in the Pan Am Games.

Such gender differentiation has been questioned and criticized by scholars and some sports analysts.

In his academic paper for “Revista Cruce” (Cruce Magazine) titled “12 Baloncelistas: Disparidades por género en el basquet puertorriqueño” ("12 Basketball Players: Gender Disparities in Puerto Rican Basketball"), Raúl Feliciano Ortiz , doctoral candidate in Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, questions the inconsistency in the use of gender labels to describe men and women sports in mass media. The young Puerto Rican scholar comments on how, while gender differentiation is not used for men’s basketball, the “women’s basketball” label is always employed for marketing and media coverage purposes.

“On the official webpage for FIBA Américas, the ruling body for basketball in our continent, it is clear that the basketball without the (gender) adjective is the real game, where men participate,” said Feliciano in his paper. “Thus, women’s basketball is the inferior version, where women participate.”

His comments are consistent with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Prof. Margaret Carlisle Duncan, who also questions the practice of differential marking for men and women in sports.

For her, gender marking “consists of labeling women’s sports as the Women’s NCAA Final Four (rather than the NCAA Final Four, which is the locution typically used for the men’s competition) or labeling female athletes (the women’s world record holder, rather than the world record holder,” stated Carlisle in her academic paper “Gender Warriors in Sport: Women and the Media.”

“In the parallel men’s competition or in description of male athletes, no such gender marking occurs. What makes this linguistic practice significant is the assumption that men’s events and male athletes have primacy and therefore need no qualifications, unlike the women’s events and women,” Carlisle wrote.

Applied to the legislative pieces submitted by Iglesias, the arguments presented by both Feliciano Ortiz and Carlisle could be contextualized with the argument that the senator’s approach to the question of gender and sports tends to identify the women’s representation as the “other” team that needs to be labeled due to the participation of these female athletes in an “inherently” male-dominated world like basketball. Omitting the gender mark for men, while simultaneously using it for women is interpreted by Feliciano as a form of diminishing female teams.

In his analysis of this alleged inconsistency in the Puerto Rican professional basketball leagues, Feliciano adds a footnote to his paper where he argues that the slogan BSNF (Spanish acronym for Women’s Superior National Basketball) is particularly offensive, meaning “they” (women) can also play. Not only the tradition of identifying the masculine as "the real" and "the original" by employing the “also” word,  but the third person positioning as “ellas” (female pronoun in Spanish for “them”) suggests that whoever added that phrase does not identify himself as a woman, he explains.

Senators react

In the midst of celebrations for the accomplishment of Puerto Rican athletes in the recent Pan American Games, legislators from the two main political parties highlighted the importance of recognizing the efforts of both national basketball teams.

For NPP Sen. Evelyn Vázquez, chairwoman of the Senate Women’s Affairs Committee, all Puerto Rico should be proud of what the basketball teams, especially the women’s representation, accomplished in Guadalajara.

“The important part here is that we need to be festive, celebrate the triumphs and provide equal treatment to both female and male athletes,” argued Vázquez in defense of the legislative resolutions to congratulate the basketball teams.

She also preferred not to give importance to the differential language in the text of the two Iglesias resolutions.

“As a woman and as chairwoman of the Women’s Affairs Committee, I'm extremely proud with their triumph and I believe it's necessary to highlight the fact that it was the women’s team,” she said. “This victory has to be on the records because they made history. We usually only know about victories by the men’s team.”

In consonance with Iglesias’ resolution (S.R. 2423), Vázquez presented a motion (S.M. 5722) to organize a big celebration for the 12 players who won the gold for Puerto Rico. The event will be held Nov. 9 at 11:00 a.m. at the Capitol.

In addition to the legislative appreciation party, Vázquez also promised she will request the commonwealth Sports and Recreation Department and the Senate Legislative Donations Committee to fund sports programs exclusively for women.

Members from the PDP minority also reacted to the language used in the senatorial resolutions to congratulate both male and female athletes.

PDP Sen. Sila Mari González Calderón was cautious about commenting on the texts in the resolutions, but she stressed the need to pay more attention to the gender codes and language used in legislative debates and documents.

“This whole situation (about sports resolutions) goes beyond this issue since legislative bills today still generalize humans and mostly refer to men only,” González said. “For example, the (Puerto Rico) constitution still talks about the dignity of men. When people speak or write, you see the lag we as society have in terms of recognizing the presence of women.”

In response to a question by the Daily Sun, she pledged to create awareness in the Senate about more inclusive uses of gender codes in legislative texts and debates, including those related to athletes. She also said that in the last four-year term (2005-2008), the Senate had its own institutional public policy that pursued an inclusive and respectful language based on the precepts of gender equality.

“Last term, we had our own institutional policy that was based on the rejection of all legislative pieces with discriminatory gender language,” she said. 

When compared to the NPP resolution (S.R. 2436) presented by Iglesias and approved by the Senate, the analogous bill filed by PDP Sen. Hernández Mayoral and rejected by the legislative majority, interestingly identified the men’s national basketball team as winners of gold in the “men’s” basketball tournament.

Criticism of legislative opportunism

Not everyone on the island shares local lawmakers' excitement in filing resolutions of “congratulations” and organizing appreciation parties at the Capitol. For Zacha Acosta, former fencing athlete and current sports journalist and college professor at Sacred Heart University, the partisan debates over the worthiness of congratulating the Pan American athletes are out of touch with most Puerto Ricans, who are more interested in enjoying the success of their athletes than in the use of sports for playing politics.  

“The resolutions presented by both political parties mirror the [low] level of lawmaking in this country,” said Acosta in reference to the partisan controversy regarding the similar but conflicting resolutions presented by Iglesias and Hernández Mayoral. “Instead of joining the happiness of a country supportive of its athletes and its successes, they prefer to focus on discord, thus threatening the state of satisfaction provided by our athletes for two weeks.”

Acosta also lamented the legislative exclusion of athletes from other sports who also represented Puerto Rico with success in the Guadalajara games.

“I would have approached this issue by congratulating the whole delegation for all of its successes, as was done by the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee, which did not discriminate because of race, color or gender,” added the host of the “Estocada Deportiva” (Sports Thrust) radio talk show. “You don’t offend anyone by recognizing the talent, effort and sports capacity of all our delegation.”  

For  Acosta, a specialist in the academic area of “Sports, Media and Society”, the recognition of women in sports on equal terms with male athletes is more important than any other consideration, including the issue of the most appropriate ways to use gender identification of leagues or sports contests. However, she also recognized the importance of language and discourse in terms of the ways sports are represented and communicated to audiences and society in general.

“For me, addressing gender equity by starting with a discourse of equality is an advancement, but unfortunately, the Legislature paralyzes those efforts with the raising of partisan issues and controversies,” said the former fencing athlete for Team Puerto Rico.

Beltrán rules out changes in BSN gender coding

The claims for more consistency in the use of gender distinctions in basketball leagues did not seem to convince Puerto Rico Basketball Federation President Carlos Beltrán. He was emphatic in the alleged need to maintain the two national professional basketball leagues with their current names: “Baloncesto Superior Nacional" (Superior Basketball League or BSN for its Spanish acronym) for men and “Baloncesto Superior Nacional Femenino" (Women’s Superior Basketball League) for women.

“The BSN is a league with a lot of tradition and its name is recognized and supported by fans and sponsors as well,” said Beltrán. “The women’s league is more recent and that is why we differentiate it from the BSN.”

“What's important here today is to highlight all the accomplishments by all our athletes who represented Puerto Rico with dignity,” concluded the basketball leader who is also general secretary of the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee.