Strategically Communicating

The Huffington Post published an article regarding WNBA Dallas Wings and 4-Time All Star player, Skylar Diggins-Smith and her unfair treatment of her two-month absence from the court for postpartum depression. Diggins-Smith played the whole last months of the 2018 season pregnant kept it a secret in fear of backlash and her WNBA contract. The Twitterverse slammed her for “not a team player” for taking care of her mental health and child. 

On the topic of Gender Bias covered in chapter 4 of the textbook, Diggins-Smith and other WNBA players mentioned in the article, are faced with scarce resources for expecting mother — WNBA players do not qualify for FMLA or assistance for maternity leave. Current contract negotiations states that any players who are expecting will receive 50% of their salary and full medical insurance to cover their maternity care expenses (Voepel, 2017). However, I discovered that NBA players also currently have no paternity leave for their contracts but do have a mandatory 18 days off policy (Garcia, 2017) in which they are free to do anything that does not involve NBA work activities. 

So it’s clear that Gender Bias is honey-glazed, and dripping with discrepancies between WNBA and NBA players and I hope that with the current political climate of gender equality, that these players can get more support from their respective associations. Especially since the Nike article New York Times dropped in May 2019. It raised a lot of suspicion and attention to the unfair treatment of Nike female athletes who want to start a family and I think it ties in really went to this article. I’m interested in seeing how female athlete equality pans out in the height of Japan 2020 Olympics.

Citations:

Garcia, A. (2017, July 5). The weird rules in the fine print of sports. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/news/companies/contracts-nba-nfl-mlb-terms-cba/index.html.

Papenfuss, M. (2019, October 20). Dallas Wings Women’s Basketball Star Skylar Diggins-Smith Played Entire Season Pregnant. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wnba-tyler-diggins-smith-pregnant-dallas-wings_n_5daba27fe4b0422422c607d8.

Voepel, M. (2017, May 12). WNBA moms grateful for a lot — but there is more to be done. Retrieved from  https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/19367118/wnba-moms-getting-more-help-ever-face-challenges.