Half of These Things Are Not Like the Others

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer—a local paper, now online-only, that's always looking for new ways to create eyeball-generating galleries of half-naked women—is currently featuring a gallery of "sexiest female sports personalities." There's also a sub-gallery of "sexiest male sports personalities," but separate doesn't exactly mean equal.

Let's look at a typical example: Seattle's second-"sexiest" women in sports, lingerie football team member Jenna Bloczynski:




... and one of the "sexiest" men, Seattle Seahawk Matt Hasselbeck:



Needless to say, all of the guys in the male photo essay are fully clothed. Unlike the women, who include two sportscasters, they also all play actual sports (cheerleading as sport may be debatable, but lingerie "football" is about as much a sport as lingerie Jello wrestling). And all of them are praised either for their sports prowess or the "hotness" of the women they've bagged (Seattle Sounder Freddie Lgungberg has dated "beautiful babes"; Patrick Kerney "up-chicked" by shacking up with the No. 1-ranking "sexiest" woman, newscaster Lisa Gangel).

The women, in contrast, are universally described in terms of their looks, not their abilities (two are sportscasters; one's a cheerleader): For example, Gangel is "the hottest ticket in town"; Bloczynski is a "sassy brunette"; Seattle Storm center Lauren Jackson is a "swimsuit model" who once appeared nude in a magazine; and University of Washington softball pitcher Danielle Lawrie "can't decide if she wants to be a blonde or a brunette." Which is relevant to her pitching... how?

Incidentally, the reason I stumbled across the photo spread is that KING-5—the TV station for which Gangel works—put the story on their official Twitter feed, encouraging readers to comment. Wonder how Gangel feels about that?