Should the shape of the WNBA game change?

An article by Steve St. Pierre of InPlay! Magazine gives an outsiders perspective of the WNBA. I know at least a couple of fans on RebKell that felt that the article was insulting, but I didn't see read anything insulting in the text.

Suggested rules and/or equipment changes to the WNBA game are almost destined to draw a negative reaction from women's basketball fans. Part of the reasons come from the history of women's basketball.

From the beginnings of the game, there were two sorts of concerns regarding the participation of women in the sport. The first was that basketball would masculinize women. The second was that basketball would injure the perceived delicate constitutions of women.

The solution was to discourage young women from playing basketball. Whenever that wasn't possible, the solution was to change the rules of the game. The rules were modified to allow less running and more players, with a limiting of the roles of players. Players became specialists instead of all-around players. Versions like six-on-six basketball became popular in some parts of the country. Some Oklahoma schools hung on to six-on-six basketball until 1995!

In any event, women's basketball was considered something strange and foreign, and easy to marginalize. It would be a long time before the traditional five-on-five form of basketball resumed. The AAU finally picked up the five court full player game in 1971 and in that same year, Title IX was signed.

It was a seventy-year battle for women to play basketball on something approaching an equal basis with men. Women didn't wish to be marginalized anymore. They wanted to play with the same rules that the men used. Changes in the rules or the equipment have never been easy sells.

In 1984, for example, the smaller women's ball was adopted by the NCAA. Even though the new ball was only marginally smaller and marginally lighter than the male ball, it was not a slam-dunk so to speak. The smaller ball had been suggested in previous years, the argument being that other sports like tennis and bowling had no problems adapting equipment for female players and that a smaller ball size would give women - who had smaller hands than men - more control over the ball for passing and shooting. However, the small ball was slow to be accepted, and even then it was not really that radical a change.

One of the two unwritten rules of women's basketball fandom is "we want women's basketball to use all of the rules and all of the equipment of men's basketball". No shortened court sizes, no lowering the basket, same markings on the court. Anything else is taken as an attempt to return women to the days of "play dates" between schools complete with socials after the game, to shove the sport into a safely-ignored box.

The other unwritten rule of women's basketball fandom appears to be "at the same time, we want the game to be distinctly different from the men's game, despite the similar rules". It's hard to tell where this rule comes from, but it could have its origins in second-wave feminism of the 1970s. Among some advocates of women's rights there was the concern that with greater opportunities women might fall victim to patriarchal thinking - that increased girl power might turn women into the same jerks that men were, so to speak. Women's basketball becoming exactly like men's basketball would have been no victory.

This unwritten rule might have an even older pedigree. There have always been advocates for the "purity" of the women's came. Some of those advocates have been those who wanted to put women "up on a pedestal and out of sight", so to speak, but others were seriously concerned with what they saw as the excesses of the male game. Even early in the game, some of the problems associated with the male game were present - point shaving scandals, recruiting violations, an attempt to introduce professionalism at younger and younger levels, the hangers-on, agents, and shady characters, and the general inclination of authorities to look away from the chicanery if there was a buck to be made. Many thought that if the women's game were kept "pure" and amateur enough it wouldn't be infected by the win-at-all-costs culture.

Many of those innocents offering solutions to increase the popularity of the game by say, lowering the rim to nine feet, have the misfortune of violating both of the unwritten rules:

"Your suggestion is trying to change the game of women's basketball to something that can be ignored. The haters will simply say that women can't play 'real' basketball if the rim is lowered to nine feet. You're not going to shove women into a corner of the basketball world with your stupid suggestion."

"Does the game really need more 'dunking'? More showboating moves? Do we really want the WNBA to be another copy of the NBA? We don't like the NBA tha tmuch anyway! Do we really want to play the kind of 'intimidation' basketball that pervades the men's professional basketball culture? Keeping the rim at its present level keeps the game pure."

In order for major rules changes to be accepted, both of the unwritten rules are going to have to be addressed. Women's basketball fans will have to be assured that changing the height of the rim is not an attempt by the powers that be - whoever they are - to trivialize women's athletics. Other sports like volleyball and tennis use either different equipment or different rules for men and women and yet don't face the argument that those changes have made the version played by one gender the inferior of the version played by other. A lowering of the rim - if it ever comes to that - would of course bring the haters out. But the problem isn't in how the equipment is used; it's in the detractors attempting to compare apples and oranges.

At the same time, those who think that the game can be kept as pure as a friendly match at the YWCA in 1907 have to realize that with the growing acceptance of women's basketball, the imaginary state of grace in which women's basketball resides (in their minds) doesn't exist, and probably never did exist. The women's basketball world is becoming a lot like the men's world. True, a lot of bad will come into the sport - recruiting shenanigans and institutional corruption for one - but a lot of good will come with the increased popularity and revenue. An increase in the popularity of the sport will serve as a greater example of the fact that women can reshape the world on their own terms, nine-foot-rim or not.