Tommy Heinsohn yells "Hey Girlie" at woman ref

[Ogaju]

why do we have women referees in a man's game?

It is clear they cannot keep up with the game.

The standard shouldn't be gender.  Rather, it should be competence.

You seem to be equating the two, which comes across as a bit ignorant to me.

I agree with you in part, the women refs are incompetent. They do not seem to be able to keep up so far. Perhaps we should continue the affirmative action until we get a woman that is competent.

[TheTruthFot18]

When I hear people complain they are upset about stuff like this, I wonder how emotionally developed they are.

The same type of people voluntarily go see a stand up comedian and get offended by what they say.

[TheTruthFot18]

why do we have women referees in a man's game?

It is clear they cannot keep up with the game.

What next? Affirmative action for women players? One woman per team? You know its coming.

Honestly that's not enough. Women represent roughly +/- 50% of the population. This means on a 15 (wo)man roster, 7-8 must be women. If the coach is male, he must have at least one female assistant. Either Bryan Doo or Ed Lacerate must be replaced by a female.

Can't find a women to also be an owner? Someone will force under qualified female who doesn't even want it into that position for you, no worries.

[GratefulCs]

Ok, this topic was fun/entertaining for a little bit, but now sexism is rearing its ugly head



It's not that female refs can't keep up. This PARTICULAR ref HAPPENS to be female, AND she's bad. She's not inherently bad BECAUSE she's female.

There have been, what, like two female refs in the NBA. And now they're ALL bad because of these two?


NBA refs are bad anyway

[Jonny CC]

why do we have women referees in a man's game?

It is clear they cannot keep up with the game.

What next? Affirmative action for women players? One woman per team? You know its coming.

Wow.  Are you still mad that women were given the right to vote too?!?!?

[nickagneta]

Hey Tommy, its 2015 and there are women refs and women who are Celtics fans watching the game.  You are the one making the bad call tonight!     I have always been a Tommy fan, but he has spoiled the whole Tommy point thing.

So are you saying the female ref should've been treated differently? Tommy is literally ALWAYS on the refs, even the ones he's pretty good friends with. Pretty ridiculous to bring this up given the context.

I know, right?  Equality in this situation means being treated like every other ref.

When Tommy criticizes every other ref, does he refer to their gender?  If so, then whatever.  But I think we all know he doesn't, and therein lies the problem.  His yelling at the ref refers to her gender.  it would be a similar problem if yelling at the ref referred to the ref's race.  Neither race nor gender are relevant to the criticism, so they shouldn't be a part of it.

I love Tommy, but hr messed up, plain and simple.

Since 99% of the other refs are male, that wouldn't make much sense.

Exactly why saying "Hey girlie", which is clearly meant to be a demeaning reference to her gender, is in fact sexist.  I'm disappointed, but not surprised, at the number of people who think there was nothing wrong.  I dare some of you to say "Hey, girlie" to one of your female coworkers the next time you want her attention.  Report back here and let us know how that interaction goes.  Heck, do it multiple times, since if there's nothing wrong, no one will mind.  I'll bet they all find it endearing.

If I didn't know the ref's name, which we can all assume he did not, I probably would've addressed her in a similar way. "Hey, feminine identifier" is an avenue of addressing the only type of reference that separates her from the other refs. It's not "clearly meant to be a demeaning reference to her gender," because how was he supposed to address her? "Hey, You!" - doesn't get the job done, "Hey, Ref!" - doesn't get the job done, "Hey, feminine identifier!" - gets the job done because we all know who he's addressing. She and the rest of the refs could've avoided the whole situation by not being terrible all night.

For example, if there was one girl in a group of three guys that you were trying to get their attention, what would you yell to them - Hey, ____ ? It almost necessarily has to be feminine language to get her attention.

Good Lord, people need to lighten up on all of this PC crap. Stuff like this is only "sexism" if you're looking for "sexism."

By this logic if all the refs were male, two white and one African-American and Tommy wanted to yell at the African-American ref but didn't know his name it would be okay to yell out "Hey, blackie" because it was the only obvious identifier for the official?

I am thinking your line of thinking is off.

Tommy is a nice guy and I am sure meant nothing harmful but let's all stop pretending like he didn't say something that wasn't sexist. It was. He apologized for it. Let's move on.

Except he pretty much knows all of the black refs, because for some reason there doesn't seem to be many young black refs coming through. He knows virtually all of the refs since they stay around forever (see Dick and Joey), and I think he even knows the Violet female ref. But he usually refers to the refs he doesn't know as "young ref," because it's usually only the new refs coming in that he doesn't know, who happen to almost all be white in my experience with Tommy.

Doesnt matter what he knows or doesn't know. I am just following your logic and pointing out how flawed it is. If you do not know someone by name you don't call them by a condescending derogatory identifier especially if it has to do with race, creed, color, sex or sexual orientation. You call them by their title or not at all.

[Forza Juventus]

It's good that Tommy apologized. He is a good person and didn't mean anything bad but it was sexist. But he apologized and should be forgiven. There are worse things but it's good that he apologized. It was the right thing to do.

[JSD]

People are surprised that folks on Celticsblog are offended by this? 

[nickagneta]

People are surprised that folks on Celticsblog are offended by this? 

I don't think that people here are upset that Tommy said what he did, more I think thy are just pointing out that Tommy erred in using sexist language to describe a ref and that that isn't cool.

To be quite honest, judging by the tone of the posts, the people that seem more upset are the ones declaring that they didn't see anything wrong with what Tommy said.

[Hemingway]

the girly tonight was part of a bad reffing team effort.

To be clear:  we can debate Tommy's use of the term, but it's not going to be used to describe others on CelticsBlog.

Disparaging comments, stereotypes, or generalizations made in relation to another’s race, gender, ethnicity, religion, handicap, or sexual preference are not permitted.  The use of slurs and similar language related to such categories will result in an immediate suspension and/or ban.

Last warning, for everybody.

What are you talking about? I wasnt saying anything bad about anyone here. Get a grib.

[Forza Juventus]

Bye lol.

It's not a slur it's just condescending and sexist. He apologized and that's good. The offended people are the ones stubbornly claiming it's not sexist even though Tommy apologized.

[Jonny CC]

the girly tonight was part of a bad reffing team effort.

To be clear:  we can debate Tommy's use of the term, but it's not going to be used to describe others on CelticsBlog.

Disparaging comments, stereotypes, or generalizations made in relation to another’s race, gender, ethnicity, religion, handicap, or sexual preference are not permitted.  The use of slurs and similar language related to such categories will result in an immediate suspension and/or ban.

Last warning, for everybody.

What are you talking about? I wasnt saying anything bad about anyone here. Get a grib.

I think the problem was that you called the ref "girly".   It's ok to talk about Tommy using the term but not ok for you to do it. 

Read it this way....
On CelticsBlog, we can debate Tommy's use of the term, but it's not going to be used to describe others.   

[Eja117]

When I hear people complain they are upset about stuff like this, I wonder how emotionally developed they are.

The same type of people voluntarily go see a stand up comedian and get offended by what they say.

yup

[mgent]

I mean its simple, this thread was started by a rival fan to rile up Celtics fans because no real Celtics fan on the face of this earth would ever start a thread dissing Tommy regardless of the circumstances. Its ok though because no one what matters will ever read this.

Unfortunately, you don't have to be a rival fan to come here and rile up Celtic fans on the internet.  Some people (here just like any other place) troll just for the sake of trolling.

[rondohondo]

When I hear people complain they are upset about stuff like this, I wonder how emotionally developed they are.

The same type of people voluntarily go see a stand up comedian and get offended by what they say.

yup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7kYxfgGRnY