Why Do Women Attack Other Women On Their Weight?

This is Kelsey Williams, a Oklahoma City Thunder cheerleader.

She made headlines about two weeks ago, and it was not because of her dance moves.

A CBS Houston sports blogger, Claire Crawford wrote a piece on the website with the headlines, "“Is this chick ‘too chunky’ to be a cheerleader?” Crawford wrote, “The Rockets looked terrible in Game 1, but some say they weren’t the only bad-looking people on the court."

Crawford made more comments about Kelsey's body image in comparison to other cheerleaders on the team and defended her actions saying,"We’re not trying to be ugly. We are just discussing what men like in women, specifically NBA cheerleaders."

Kelsey Williams responded to the wide media attention she was given on her weight on her twitter account by staying classy and thanking everyone for their support and kind words to her. 

 

Crawford's piece received a lot of backlash from people and the article was picked up by multiple other news outlets and other blogs in response to her article. I don't understand, why a sports blogger would think it is appropriate to attack Kelsey Williams on her weight. Did she really think that people would react and respond kindly to her article and there would be no backlash? How could CBS Houston allow this article to even get posted on its website in the first place in the sports section? But mainly, what is the purpose of even writing this in the first place? 

The article have since then been taken down on the CBS Houston website but you can most likely find a copy posted on other websites and blogs. I thought Crawford's piece was so unnecessary and inappropriate that any well-respected journalist in the business would never write such a piece. But she did. Was she trying to get attention on herself? Did she or the CBS Houston chose this topic to bring in ratings?

I think some people would argue that it is a win/win situation because Crawford successfully gained attention and ratings on the site and Kelsey got tremendous amount of support as well as landing television interviews and "fame" so no one got hurt.

This topic made me think about our class discussion of women in the newsroom and the video we saw in class about the Fox News commentator who dumb herself down on air. I find what Crawford wrote to be disturbing and damaging to many young girls out there who are fighting body image issues. Crawford is a sports blogger and when she only write about sports and she probably doesn't get any recognition for what she does or attention on her writing. There aren't many female sports bloggers in the business and I'm sure they don't get the respect that they should get all the time.  Is there a difference in if Crawford wrote this piece or if a man wrote this?