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Best of The Blog
By Joanna Cattanach, Editor
Monday, 15th February 2010
Best of the Blog series continues with a piece that first appeared January 27: Bowled Over: Kulick Shows Men How to Handle Their Balls.
Kelly Kulick did what no woman pro bowler has ever done before. She beat a man in a bowling game. Kulick, a lithe 32-year-old ash blond from Union, N.J., bowled a 265 at the 45th Tournament of Champions in January in Las Vegas becoming the first woman ever to win and a pro-bowling men’s tournament.
Even former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens couldn’t believe it. He tweeted, “Kelly Kulick just defeated Chris Barnes 265-195 to become the 1st woman ever to win the PBA Tour!! Congratulations Kelly!” Kulick, who started the tournament with four straight strikes, was also the first female bowler allowed (she first earned a season-long exemption) in the male-dominated Professional Bowler’s Association Tour.
“I kind of think of myself as Grace Kelly on a bowling lane,” Kulick told ABC News. “You glide through the approach.” But it wasn’t always easy. In her first PBA season, “Kulick needed to finish in the top 39 in the Tour’s point system to gain an exemption for the 2007-8 season. She was 54th. She earned $31,140 in 19 P.B.A. Tour events and never finished higher than 22nd. “It was frustrating,” she told the New York Times in 2007. “So much was riding on the line.” When she’s not knocking down pins, she works at her father’s auto repair shop right alongside the boys. Famed tennis player Billie Jean King (who also beat a boy in 1973) praised the bowling beauty, “It serves as a motivational and inspirational event for girls and women competing at all levels around the world.” It sure does.
I also think it’s great that a woman not only makes it into a men’s league but she wins in the league too (see Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie). And it’s important that she stays winning and doesn’t pull a Danica Patrick–the female IndyCar driver turned NASCAR driver/bikini model who sponsors love but who has only won one first place in a major race. On Sunday, she was knocked out in a 12-car crash during her debut as a NASCAR race driver and one announcer summed her up simply as a lot of overhyped unproven talent.
Female athletes breaking into men’s pro leagues have to deal with inherent sexism. And women have to contend with the idea that many men and woment think they don’t deserve to be there but also the unflattering fact that many women (see Patrick, Wie and Sorenstam) simply don’t perform on the same level as men. And the girls who do get in are often sexually exploited (well, Danica makes major bank so I don’t think she minds the photo shoots) or used to boost ratings.
As one female reader pointed out, even female writers like mysef have a hard time keeping girl-speak out of journalism, "What's with the ash blond? Does that count toward her score? And working right alongside the boys! Imagine. I thought they had a separate bay for her with curtains. The bowling beauty? Sorry for the sarcasm, but women journalists fought so hard and so long to keep sexist descriptions out of stories about women's accomplishments and were often mocked for doing so. I kinda hurts to see it creeping back into copy like this."
She's right. It's hard not to feminize female athletes playing on the same professional level as men. As much as we may want to, separating the sexes isn't as easy as we think.
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