Lend me your ears ... and perhaps your eyes, too, next Tuesday night, when ESPN takes a walk on the wild side, to a time when a few ______________ ( choose the adjective you think best fits here) women were reporting on sports at major news organizations. And you'll find out what happened to us along the way.
Some 35 years have passed since Judge Constance Baker Motley handed down her decision in the federal lawsuit, Ludtke v. Kuhn, that Time Inc. filed against Major League Baseball on my behalf. Her decision was the first to provide equal access for women reporters so they could interview players before and after games. As things turned out, those interviews were done in the teams' locker rooms, and that's a whole other part of the story that's told in this film.
This is the first documentary film about this pioneering generation of women sports reporters, and it's part of ESPN's nine-part Nine for IX series of documentaries exploring women in sports 40 years after the passage of Title IX.
Wanted you to know about it, in case you feel like tuning in. Tuesday, July 16th, at 8:00 — yes, it is up against baseball's All Star game, so if you have a devoted baseball fan in your home, get your DVR or Tivo up and running.
Hope you enjoy,
Melissa
Film summary
Lisa Olson was just trying to do her job as a reporter for the Boston
Herald in 1990 when a group of New England Patriot players sexually
harassed her in their locker room by exposing their genitals and making
lewd and vulgar comments. Even though a subsequent NFL investigation
concluded that Olson had been "degraded and humiliated," the 25-year-old
continued to be tormented by Patriot fans -- so much so that she
temporarily moved to Australia to resume her career.
Why has equal access for women reporters remained such a hot-button issue? That question is asked in "Let Them Wear Towels," a history and examination of females working in the man's world of the locker room. Through interviews with such pioneer women as Ludtke, Claire Smith, Lesley Visser and Christine Brennan, you'll hear stories of raw behavior and humorous retaliation, angry lawsuits and remarkable resolve.