BOOKS

...I am no longer searching for my 'Real Love...

...She had taped the whole game, and was hoping to go home without knowing the outcome and watch it herself...

...Professional teams decline to set up another venue for interviews, so female reporters go into locker rooms and put up with sexual harassment as part of the job...

...In sharp contrast to the inflated descriptions of male athletes, Nelson points out, reporters seem to go out of their way to diminish women in sports—using adjectives like "petite" and "tiny" to describe women who are of average or even larger-than-average size, focusing on the athletes' nervousness, exhaustion, and other signs of weakness and failure...

...It was as if the Hurricanes colluding with the cheerleaders and the cheerleaders colluding with the Hurricanes were sending a message of reconciliation...

...Still, it is burdened at times by cliched sports writing (including the strained search for new words to convey such mundane concepts as making a basket...

...Still, Gordon views the establishment of welfare as a feminist victory...

...It's a sad commentary, actually, that it requires as much data as it does for Rank to reach the point, at the end of the book, where he can say of the poor with scientific certainty, "they're people like us...

...Little girls ask the team members for autographs, and the Hurricanes' success spawns new interest in a youth basketball program, where the players work with small children of both sexes, who regard them with awe...

...In the last chapter of her 1989 book Fear of Falling, Barbara Ehrenreich discusses the anxiety about scarcity among members of the middle class that creates conservatism and fear...

...This is a story of sheer victory...

...I wouldn't want to visit these peep shows, movie theaters, and newsstands myself...

...Women sports reporters tell Nelson about their survival strategies in this man's world...

...Beginning on a low note, with the disappointing end of the 1992 season, Blais follows the determined evolution of the Hurricanes into state champions, and the changes that take place along the way in the players and the people around them...

...A woman can do the same job as I can do—maybe even be my boss...

...she asks...

...Women watching, commenting on, and participating in sports shake things up...

...Rank himself uses the alienating term "human capital" throughout his book...

...Her expeditions into sex shops remind me of female sports reporters' forays into the locker room—invasions of a jealously guarded male sphere...

...Women players are called by their first names 53 percent of the time in televised tennis matches, compared with 8 percent of the time for men...

...This is the "muscle" of hope that Madeleine Blais observes in female, high-school athletes—the urge to grow, get stronger, and learn...

...Writing about sports is hard...

...Our feelings about what we are as human beings and our relationships to other people, to nature, and to the rest of the world, all come to the surface when we get physical...

...I have often been annoyed by men who are close to me in workouts, but nonetheless try to use me as the low bench mark...

...One mysterious element in the plot is a game that expands the human mind through the pleasure principal, leading to a higher plane of consciousness...

...Even if there is a coming scarcity of money or consumer goods, Ehrenreich claims, there is another prized possession of the middle class of which there is no shortage—the secret joy of meaningful, fulfilling work...

...One of the most revealing sections of the book is on sports reporting...

...Current reform proposals set out to use Government assistance to influence poor people's decisions about marriage, having children, and almost everything else...

...They are also full of seriousness and focus, tenaciously, almost instinctively, hurling themselves at all obstacles: fear, pain, inter-team rivalries, rigid social rules about femininity, and their own physical limits...

...They insist on seeing it as a disgrace to be beaten by a woman...

...It is a strikingly hopeful view: "What if the pleasure principal is allowed to ripen...

...I couldn't help but wonder what the story would be like if it took for granted the idea of female heroism, camaraderie, and athleticism—if it were written from a brash, straightforward, athlete's point of view...

...But sharing it requires that we give up our ideas of class, rank, and individual worth measured in money...

...Over and over, the characters in the book describe their view that life is a competition to survive...

...Both books discuss the power of sports—as a progressive, transformative force for girls in Blais's book, and as a regressive symbol of male supremacy in Nelson's...

...And part of it is that the girls understand and appreciate what a gift it is to be an athlete—something their mothers couldn't be...

...Mainly they lie low, ignore the abuse, and, occasionally, hearteningly, make a snappy come-back: "It was allegedly a female sportswriter who came up with a now-classic retort to a flasher," Nelson writes...

...Also, the book is tinged in parts with a self-consciousness and sentimentality that seems attached to the female subjects...

...Tisdale bravely plants the flag for women in the wilderness of bawdy, unrestrained, unregulated sex...

...Let politicians and the press refer to Social Security, home mortgage deductions, schools and parks, garbage disposal, and corporate tax breaks as welfare," she writes...

...But, as Nelson points out, men often take credit as a group for the accomplishments of male sports stars...

...The sports pages are full of purple prose about familiar dramas...

...The same concept sneaks into Kipper's Game (HarperCollins), Barbara Ehrenre-ich's new science-fiction novel—a surprising departure from her political writing into spiritual and extraterrestrial realms...

...It is the thing that we have found, to which we belong, contribute, and love...

...Part of it is that the games are played for their own sake—there is no chance of fame or large salaries down the road...

...But it seems to me exactly the role of the liberal-minded person, in these dark times, to start imagining how to live more abundantly, generously, embrac-ingly—to grow beyond the nasty divisive rhetoric that's so plentiful now, and think of a way we might all learn to play together...

...The stories of the people he interviews are heartbreaking: Joyce Mills, whose ex-husband is in prison for sexually assaulting the children, Mike Abbot, who got a serious back injury on the job and whose family is now on food stamps...

...Sexual energy is an abundance that fills more than one void...

...Rank makes no specific policy proposals...

...The larger question Nelson raises, though, is whether men and women can get along at all...

...Yet in his methodical way, he comes to some humanitarian conclusions...

...Both books are intended as antidotes to the mean-spirited politics now in vogue— reviling the poor and driving them deeper into despair...

...But we need the courage and optimism to make a start.¦ (Ruth Conniff is Associate Editor of The Progressive...

...More recently, Billie Jean King slyly admits that she makes a habit of using men's first names when she's a commentator at tennis matches...

...It is true that men are faster than women at the uppermost levels...

...Before he wrote Living on the Edge, Rank spent ten years conducting interviews and sociological research...

...Tisdale sets herself against the idea, shared by many feminists and anti-feminists alike, that pornography is an exclusively male province...

...The whole book is worth reading for the last chapter, though...

...A chapter on rape by college athletes is particularly disquieting...

...Over the holidays, as I was finishing Nelson's book, two women I know—both of them talented, graceful athletes, both lesbians, and both quite strong—revealed to me that they love football...

...We need to exercise our capacity for hope...

...The burden is on women to be inoffensive, to dress modestly, and to diffuse tensions if they arise...

...Furthermore, we need to expand the possibility for a more satisfying way of life to include all Americans—meaningful work for everyone...

...Some critics disdained it as a loopy, fanciful story...

...What Marcuse calls the 'erotic reality' isn't based in sex so much as in a life-affirming and loving acceptance of others," Tisdale writes...

...Still, a fast woman can beat your average man...

...Part of the problem is that sports stories, with their classic elements of struggle, persistence, and courage in the face of adversity, are hopelessly cliched...

...We need to recreate the system, she argues, so that it takes into account modern social and economic realities...

...Reading her book, and recognizing the picture she presents, gave me a sinking feeling...

...And, of course, giving a hugely disproportionate amount of play to stories about female athletes as victims of violent attacks...

...In typical teenage-girl fashion, many of the Hurricanes talk about, write about, and make speeches on the meaning of love and friendship to the team, and the "fire" they all feel...

...In Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (Doubleday), Sallie Tis-dale conducts a poetic exploration of pornography, sexuality, dominance, submission, and physical joy...

...So it is with surprise and relief that I've noticed this radical notion of pleasure popping up in my reading throughout the year...

...Blais's story is particularly interesting because it's about a group of girls...

...One of them was at my house for Thanksgiving dinner...

...In The Stronger Women Get The More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports, Mariah Burton Nelson, a former professional basketball player, tackles the issues of sports and sexism head-on...

...The way their lives revolve around money is particularly depressing...

...Women's-rights activists in the Nineteenth Century first proposed and lobbied for "mothers' aid," along with reproductive freedom and laws against child labor...

...Two timely and important social-policy books support this idea: Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America (Columbia University Press) by Mark Robert Rank and Pitied But Not EntitledSingle Mothers and the History of Welfare (Macmillan) by Linda Gordon...

...Who in 1910 imagined a world in which half the children live with single mothers, most mothers are employed full-time, and mothering is no longer viewed as the appropriate life's work for women...

...Of course, the lead characters are almost always male...

...Can girls ever be as good as boys and play with them as equals...

...I train with a group of male athletes on a track team, and I think about this issue a lot...

...Instead, he ends his book by posing a moral question: "What ethical obligation do we as individuals and as a society have to attempt to alleviate such suffering and misery...

...We make scarcity, both economic and interpersonal...

...The climactic final game, and Blais's description of that fateful night, from the pre-game locker-room talk to the bus ride home, is beautiful...

...Because female heads of household were regarded with suspicion, "punitive and/or rehabilitative" measures were part of government aid programs that served them from the beginning...

...Both authors make a plea to their readers' (and policy-makers') better natures, to try to imagine a more rational and humane welfare system...

...It is Tisdale's pleasure principal...

...You know what this is?' he asked...

...At the same time, I appreciate Tisdale's efforts to conquer and demystify them for all women...

...For some of the mothers of the Hurricanes, who remembered when to be a cheerleader was the only way to feel connected to a sport and physical beauty was the first criterion, the moment was a vindication...

...And I've experienced, first-hand, how gender roles have loosened up over the last few years as more and more women develop their muscle...

...A circle had been closed...

...Imagine if states tried to rid themselves of elderly residents by lowering Social Security old-age pensions," she suggests...

...This hero-worship is especially evident in the locker room...

...You have to wonder why they do it...

...In These Girls Hope is a Muscle is the story of the Lady Hurricanes—the high-school girls' basketball team from Amherst, Massachusetts, that captured the state title in 1993...

...When my boyfriend arrived late, full of lament about the Green Bay Packers' loss, she was crushed...

...The pride the girls stir up in the community, which starts packing the gym for games, is one of the most touching things about the Hurricanes' story...

...They upset some fundamental dynamic, as Nelson amply demonstrates...

...But there's something particularly nagging about this rivalry between women and men...

...The breathless astonishment with which they are regarded by just about everyone, including the author, gets a little old...

...Tisdale advances a broad and generous theory of the erotic that rejects repression, and makes room for a variety of sexual experience...

...Then she takes an unexpected turn...

...Sports, like sex, rooted in the body, touch our most intimate selves...

...Hoop Phi is the thing that people search for in their lives...

...I had been waiting to read the whole story ever since a very moving excerpt appeared in The New York Times Magazine last year...

...what I have experienced in this winter season is unique and simply unrepeatable...

...Other forms of social spending that primarily benefit men and the already well-off are seen as entitlements, to which the recipient has a right...

...In Pitied But Not Entitled, Linda Gordon takes things one step further...

...In the current political climate, this doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon...

...For the first time ever, the all-girl high-school cheerleading squad comes out to root for the girls' team...

...I admit I had tears in my eyes...

...There is something special, something pure, about girls' sports, Blais points out...

...Ehrenreich proposes that Americans realign our values to emphasize not money but rather a kind of Aristotelian ideal of fulfillment...

...Obviously, competition is native to sports...

...In one such outpouring, All-American Jamila Wideman (now a scholarship player for Stanford) describes the special sorority they've developed, and their chant, "Hoop Phi...

...Her thesis is that what we call welfare— aid to women and children—is arbitrarily seen as charity, something needed but not necessarily deserved...

...There is enough wealth in this country to go around, she points out...

...Social policy aimed at the poor reinforces this view...

...It looks like a penis, only smaller,' she responded...

...that they are committed to worshiping football, brute strength, sports talk, and male bonding, that the more they feel women encroaching on their turf, the more they will retrench...

...Such a libertine attitude is dramatically out of place in our current political climate...

...Dedicating yourself to the rat-race at a low-wage job is a sign of morality and health...

...Welfare, says Gordon, is a feminist invention...

...The portraits of individual players reminded me of the girls I coach— boisterously strutting with their boom box before a competition, dressing in team colors, with team hair bands, team dinners, and a panoply of other team rituals...

...Nelson's book is full of examples of how men's sports reinforce a definition of masculinity based on force and domination, as well as contempt for women...

...On the other hand, I have developed some wonderful relationships with men through my own participation in sports...

...This requires us to believe in human goodness, and most of us don't...

...In some parts, Blais's detailed account bogs down—headlines and song titles are immortalized, year-book style, along with minutiae about the town, the weather, and minor characters in the plot...

...According to the current welfare-reform rhetoric, staying home with your baby is a sign of laziness and shiftlessness...

...Blais does a wonderful job of capturing the energy and life-or-death intensity of adolescence...

...Scarcity of every kind is artificial...

...It is a joy to read about women fighting back, taking the macho boys down a peg, and claiming their own place in sports...

...In particular, a rational modern welfare system should focus on "helping mothers to be wage earners and to meet domestic labor obligations," including good wages, day care, medical insurance, and parental leave, since "welfare and jobs policies are inextricably connected...

...Maybe it's true that men as a group reserve real love and respect—and a considerable amount of unacknowledged erotic feeling—for other men...

...As both an athlete and a coach of high-school girls, I was particularly excited about two new books on women and sports, In These Girls Hope is a Muscle, by Madeleine Blais (Atlantic Monthly Press), and The Stronger Women Get the More Men Love Football by Mariah Burton Nelson (Har-court Brace...

...These questions dog women and girls—and, according to Nelson, men, too—in sports and in life...

...Never mind," she continues, "that most men would not fare well either if 'hit' by Ronnie Lott—or any other pro football player...

...More overtly than in any other area of journalism, in the sports pages reporters cozy up to their sources, downplay the bad news, and generally act like fans...

...Just imagine what it must be like to go through puberty and have your body on your side," says one team mom...

...Parallel to the history of women's exclusion from sports, there is a history of provocative, funny sports writing by women, the author reveals—including some hilarious columns written in the 1920s by Lorena Hickok, who poked fun at men's sports from the point of view of an "uninitiated girl reporter...

...She evokes exactly the feeling of time crystallized on those rare, clear moments, especially in high school—"when truth itself had become a dream...

...But I'll be damned if she can go out there on the [football] field and take a hit from Ronnie Lott," Nelson quotes a former football player as saying...

...The fruit of his labor is the carefully argued thesis that people on welfare are not so much morally or mentally defective as they are just plain poor...

...Nelson describes the peculiar atmosphere of a locker room full of hangers-on ("guys with baseball caps on backwards saying 'Yo' ") and explores the hostility to women reporters who enter this male domain, relating some harrowing tales of taunting and sexual threats in which male athletes, coaches, and reporters collude to make women understand that they are unwelcome...