I had simply settled into my seat on the second night time of Unmatched’s 1-on-1 match in February, when all of a sudden it felt just like the wind had been swept out of the room. I regarded towards the doorway, curious to know if anybody else had skilled the identical sensation, and realized four-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time WNBA Champion Lisa Leslie, who was attending in her official capability as a TNT analyst, had simply walked into the health club.
To say that Leslie effortlessly instructions the eye of any room she enters isn’t hyperbole; it’s practically not possible to not discover somebody so inherently magnetic. Leslie herself is conscious of the affect she has on individuals, she later advised me, and it comes from feeling genuinely good about herself. “I’ve at all times been comfy in my pores and skin,” she defined, “which meant being female, because of my mother.”
Leslie hails from an extended line of “sensible, lovely, and trendy ladies” she added — “ladies with brains, magnificence, and brawn.” The thought of not mixing basketball with magnificence by no means occurred to her, and he or she’s a proud forebearer of athletes who’ve since modeled themselves equally, corresponding to Cameron Brink, Rickea Jackson, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Chiney Ogwumike, and Azurá Stephens.
“I’ve cherished being a task mannequin my complete profession,” Leslie additionally stated. “I’ll by no means cease being a vocal advocate for ladies and ladies. God gave me this platform to make a optimistic affect on our communities whereas letting His mild shine — I don’t take that accountability flippantly.”
However simply because she’s keen to hold that weight doesn’t imply Leslie and her fellow WNBA athletes — together with the gamers who shall be drafted in 2025 — have at all times had it straightforward, and issues have usually been far dicier for Black gamers. One solely wants take a look at the feedback about any submit that includes Angel Reese or Brittney Griner — two very totally different athletes who’re nonetheless controversial it doesn’t matter what they do — to know racism and sexism are alive and properly in the USA. Stereotypes which have at all times existed about feminine skilled athletes are nonetheless pervasive — to say nothing of what they (and particularly Black feminine athletes) who got here into their very own within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s went via.
The sooner work of Invoice Simmons, former ESPN analyst and founding father of The Ringer, maybe most precisely sums the prevailing attitudes up: “Nicely, the overwhelming majority of WNBA gamers lack crossover intercourse attraction. That’s simply the way in which it’s,” the Rating credit Simmons with having written in 2006. In the identical column, he added that “some are uncomfortably tall and gawky, whereas others lack the requisite, um, softer qualities to captivate males between 18 and 35. The saggy uniforms don’t assist. Neither does the truth that it’s robust for anybody to look enticing on the finish of a two-hour basketball sport.”
“Then once more, perhaps these realities don’t matter as a lot as one would suppose, as a result of Sue Hen is downright lovable — even when carrying Rip Hamilton’s Schnozzaroo — and I wouldn’t watch 10 minutes of a WNBA sport due to her. If Sue was strolling round on the ESPYs in a cocktail costume, I’m watching,” he added. “If she’s working a decide and roll with Lauren Jackson, I’m flicking channels.” Reader replies obtained by Simmons — lots of that are nonetheless obtainable to learn on-line — provide extra of the identical.
On the similar time, Hen — who’s now married to Megan Rapinoe — and lots of athletes within the WNBA have been repeatedly warned to not come out as homosexual.
(It’s value noting that in a February 2024 episode of his podcast, Simmons had seemingly reversed course from 20 years earlier, saying he “cared extra” concerning the ladies’s NCAA match than the boys’s, including “there’s continuity — the type of play is nice. It’s obtained a whole lot of the elemental stuff that it used to have mixed with the slash and kick within the threes. However continuity, which within the Males’s now it’s gone.”)
However nonetheless, issues in 2015 weren’t significantly better than 2006, at the least in keeping with NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who noticed in a piece for Time that “exterior the fanboy world of Xena: Princess Warrior and Surprise Girl, a muscular lady is mostly not the best… I believe as a result of our best lady continues to be the weak lady unable to defend herself towards a person.”
And, sadly, in a whole lot of methods not a lot has improved in 2025, both, as ladies of all races who play sports activities in any respect ranges are prone to encounter some type of discrimination and misogyny. Cameron Brink realized the laborious approach after she expressed her distaste for feedback on a submit by the Los Angeles Sparks that referred to as for male observe gamers, and individuals on-line criticized her for expressing her ideas. Tennis star Emma Raducanu has a stalker who has gone as far as to indicate up at matches, a transfer that scared her into stopping a match earlier than he was eliminated (Raducanu dropped fees towards the person after he signed a letter promising to maintain his distance from her).
And, as WNBA followers know, one solely wants to look the names Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark on any social media platform to seek out hundreds of horrific feedback and posts.
However nonetheless, there are shiny spots. Girls who play skilled basketball are flourishing on the courtroom and off, and by no means have so many various ladies from so many various persuasions been allowed to totally embrace who they’re. Gone are the times when gamers have been caught within the closet lest they disturb followers; if something, WNBA followers are clamoring for extra particulars about DeWanna Bonner and Alyssa Thomas’ relationship and their spa days, and Brittney and Cherelle Griner have been met with a wealth of help on-line since welcoming their son, Bash in July 2024.
Rickea Jackson, a College of Tennessee graduate who’s getting into her second yr with the Los Angeles Sparks this Could, agrees that issues are simpler in a whole lot of methods for youthful gamers within the league. “I actually haven’t confronted a ton of that,” she stated of less-than-positive attitudes about ladies who play basketball. “Particularly within the place I’m in now.”
The truth is, Jackson added, she doesn’t personally expertise a whole lot of harassment. As a substitute, she says her era of gamers is getting higher at ignoring what’s on the market (to a degree) and specializing in their very own beneficial properties, be they private, on the courtroom, or within the weight room. “No matter your sport is – you don’t must be the strongest individual on the earth. For those who’re bucket, you’re only a bucket.”
“I’m simply completely satisfied to be right here, actually,” she additionally advised me. “As a child, I used to be into ballet — I wasn’t into basketball and sports activities — I used to be into nails and hair. So to be a basketball participant is type of loopy.”
As for younger ladies who’re trying as much as her, Jackson hopes they see her on the courtroom and really feel “they’ll [do] no matter they put their thoughts to,” she continued. As an athlete who started her profession in basketball comparatively late, Jackson additionally stated she hopes younger ladies perceive that “no matter you need, you already know, chase it – and no matter you place your thoughts so you possibly can accomplish it.”
In the case of how households of such younger ladies might help their daughters develop into sturdy ladies who really feel lovely from the within out, sports activities psychiatrist Dr. Wilsa Charles Malveaux agrees with Leslie that it begins within the house, and that oldsters corresponding to Leslie’s mom are essential to a younger lady’s vanity and the way she carries herself. “Consciousness is such an enormous piece of it,” she defined.
“For those who don’t acknowledge that you could maintain these unconscious biases, corresponding to your messages to your little one about how they do their hair, or what’s presentable for leaving the home, could possibly be unintentionally reinforcing that different individuals with unfavourable intentions are giving them about what’s adequate,” Wilksa continued.
“Race is a social assemble,” she stated, “however that doesn’t imply it’s not affecting your life.” A whole lot of conversations that households have at house about ladies, and particularly about ladies who appear to be them, might find yourself “chipping away at [young girls’] self-confidence and their self-worth and making them really feel that there’s one thing inherently mistaken with who they’re,” Wilksa defined.
Bonner, a two-time WNBA champion who can also be one of many latest additions to the Indiana Fever this season, sees a whole lot of promise in current and future perceptions of WNBA gamers by the general public, one thing that’s probably been aided by households more and more having fun with the game and the league collectively. “We get to specific ourselves extra now,” she advised me. “We have been misunderstood for a very long time — individuals didn’t essentially know we now have vogue sense and magnificence. We get to specific it greater than ever now.”
“I’m somebody totally different exterior of basketball…all of us have a life exterior of the courtroom.” Bonner paused, after which emphasised, “We’re human.”
