The Newswire has, unfortunately, addressed this topic before. And only two years ago, to boot.

Apparently, women know nothing about sports. Or, in a much more likely scenario, Xavier athletics know nothing about women, taking into account the fact that most women know at least something about sports.

We took a poll in the office. Of our editors who happen to be women, all of them have been graced with more experience in sports than at least three of our male editors. We were almost surprised.

Yes, we know, Xavier Basketball 101 for Women is for genteel housewives, not us youngin’s who go about showing our ankles and so forth. No, we haven’t forgotten. Nor have the aforementioned women forgotten how to make a layup from high school physical education. Women are, after all, allowed to play sports in America.

In fact, this university has a women’s basketball team full of scholarship athletes, none of whom are doe-eyed and wondering about the rules of the game.
We have been rather sarcastic and even flippant up to this point, and for good reason. There is no serious critique that we can level against this ridiculous program that does not also induce moral and emotional outrage or fits of uncontrollable laughter. We’ll try anyway.

What if the program dropped “for Women,” recognizing that men, too, can be ignorant of basketball? Or at least to save face and prevent ridicule for blatant sexism in national advertising?

Or what if we cancelled the program altogether, assuming that most persons are intelligent enough to read Wikipedia if they lack knowledge in a certain area?
Sure, the program is great exposure for Xavier athletics and whatnot, and we’re sure the people with money would love to meet the oh-so-famous men’s basketball team. But do you have to rely on outdated gender stereotypes to do so?