TINA CERVASIO, HEIDI WATNEY, JENNY DELL AND GUERIN AUSTIN…WHOOPS!! AND JESSICA MORAN

“I merely smiled at a TSA agent and he asked me for my phone number. To live life as a woman is to live life on the defense.”

Brie Larson, actress in a tweet

I often wonder if women think it’s tough to be women.

Is it more difficult to be a woman or a man?

The answer seems like a no-brainer in today’s America, even after all of our ‘enlightenment.’

And the rest of the universe may lag a bit behind to boot.

So in response to the question, I would say it’s more difficult to be a woman.

But I’m a man. What do I know about being a woman? Or about anything for that matter?

(Ask women who know me, and in concert they would reply, “not much”).

Women are tougher than men. Believe it.

God decided to make the male species physically stronger but that should be of no moment. It is the way it is. Doesn’t or shouldn’t matter.

Women are made of steel. Ever have a tooth pulled? Straw under your fingernails, lit? Forget it. It’s nothing. Women give birth.

That should wrap it up.

They call the shots, not always of course but I’m sure you get my drift.

The point is, women — at the very least — deserve the same respect men get. Seems like it will take an eternity, if it ever happens.

For example, women calling sporting events rankles a lot of men.

They feel it’s an invasion of their preordained space and they don’t like it.

They don’t cotton to the sound of a woman’s voice when it comes to describing a fourth-and-goal situation or the trajectory of a majestic home run.

They feel it’s anathema to hear a woman exult over a game-winning three-pointer or the sinking of a long putt in a playoff to win a major golf tournament, as these events take place.

They’re more comfortable with the dulcet tone of a man’s voice calling the action for whatever reason(s). That sound is more pleasant and agreeable to them because they’re accustomed to it. And they fancy ‘the connect,’ not ‘the disconnect.’

Rather than listen to the content of what is being spoken, they are hung up on both voice pitch and the misconception that only men can know sports.

This shallowness represents the root of the problem.

It’s a little unfair, don’t you think?

Phyllis George. Jayne Kennedy. Suzyn Waldman. Bonnie Bernstein. Gayle Gardner. Linda Cohn. Hannah Storm. Lesley Visser. Pam Oliver. Doris Burke. Mary Carillo. Suzy Kolber. Michele Tafoya. Tracy Wolfson. Heidi Watney. Kathryn Tappen. Beth Mowins. Robin Roberts. Jessica Mendoza. Sam Ryan. Lisa Guerrero. Cheryl Miller. Charissa Thompson. Britt McHenry. Josina Anderson. Jenn Brown. Erin Andrews. Gayle Sierens. Cassie Campbell. Chris McKendry. Sage Steele. Alex Flanagan. Sam Ponder. Rachel Nichols. Mary Jo Fernandez.

These are the names of trailblazing women in national sports broadcasting who have braved the storms of sexism and bias and succeeded mightily.

(And I’m sure I’ve left out several others who deserve the same admiration and respect, for which I apologize).

Most if not all of these women began their careers in local markets as is the prototypical industry custom for men and women alike.

They persevere, moving onward and upward and hopefully navigate the landmines along the way in a professional manner so as to achieve whatever their vision of success may be.

It rarely, if ever is easy.

And it is made exponentially more difficult by an invasive media mass sniffing around for a “story” along with the assortment of whack-a-mole characters who pop up regrettably all too often: the Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein breed, to name a contemporary few.

To cover the Boston Red Sox as a woman is tough. Maybe as tough as it gets.

Boston professional sports fans in general are among the most knowledgeable there are, and then some.

You give ’em 110% on the field, on the court or at the rink and they cheer you commensurately. And with great loyalty.

You don’t and they boo the air out of their lungs and suck it out of yours too. Relentlessly.

‘Prove it! Prove it to me!! And keep on provin’ it!!!’

The mantra.

For the ballplayer and for the broadcaster.

Not out of the ordinary or the least bit unfair to the Boston fan, the fan who never forgets.

When a female has the audacity, the unmitigated gall to get involved in the public baseball or sports dialogue, God forgive her in general, and if she makes either one mistake or a series of them, it’s sayonara.

“Nuf Ced,” as in McGreevy? ’Nuff said.

Tina Cervasio, the aforementioned Heidi Watney, Jenny Dell, Guerin Austin and Jessica Moran all, could attest to this. They pushed it aside for as long as they could stand it.

Perhaps Austin will be the exception; so far, she is.

The problem is, in Boston — and other locales I’m sure, although the more rabid the fan base, the more likely — there’s always something more.

To discover, to try to substantiate and to report.

To sell.

The story, the paper, the product.

It has come with the territory for a very long time.

Where is the line drawn?

It isn’t.

Cervasio and Watney were at one time — and not at the same time — linked romantically to former Red Sox catcher and captain, Jason Varitek.

Dell was drummed out of town amid rumors of a relationship with former Red Sox third baseman and current free agent Will Middlebrooks whom she married in 2016.

And Moran resigned from her position as a New England reporter on the Red Sox beat with Comcast SportsNet when it was revealed that she and former Sox manager John Farrell were getting cozy.

In a perfect world, two consenting adults should be afforded the right to make their own decisions and choices.

In the world of journalism, particularly when it comes to women covering sports in a man’s world, the unwritten and unspoken rule is that a reporter and a subject cannot have a romantic relationship.

It is unprofessional, ethically questionable and perhaps most important, it makes the already-difficult job for the female reporter working toward and deserving of respect, near-impossible.

It sets them back.

Says Jen McCaffery, the Red Sox beat writer for MassLive.com and The Springfield Republican, “…It’s not just about two people having a relationship. It’s a professional environment. You work to be respected in this industry, and to have to be constantly proving yourself because of what someone else does, that’s unfortunate.”

Nicole Auerbach, a former Boston Globe intern who covers college basketball and football for USA Today has had many discussions with male colleagues about the challenges facing women who are trying to build a career in sports journalism, and she agrees with McCaffery.

“The unfair thing with women,” she remarked “is when one woman does something, it reflects on the entire gender…It’s a male-dominated world. It makes other people’s jobs more difficult. And every time something like this happens, it gets more difficult. Every day I’m thinking about what I’m wearing. I’m thinking about how I’m asking for sources’ phone numbers, or calling or texting them. I have to be aware of the impression I’m giving and whether boundaries are clear, which are things my male colleagues don’t have to worry about.”

When ESPN.com’s Jackie MacMullan — an iconic sports journalist and an idol to the younger generation of female sports reporters — was cutting her teeth, it was all about objectivity.

“I know when I became a journalist,” she reflected, “you had to be objective. That was the rule. That was what you were supposed to be.

Sometimes you really liked somebody and they were lousy at what they do, and you had to be willing to write that they were lousy at what they do. And sometimes, someone could be a real idiot, a real jerk, but perform at a very high level. You had to do that, praise them, as well.

It’s impossible to be objective about someone when you’re in a personal relationship.”

She continued to expound.

“Now, this isn’t the first time this has happened, [Moran and Farrell] and it won’t be the last time. But it disappoints me nonetheless. I don’t think either one of them would deny that what they did was unprofessional. There’s no place for it in the business. I’m talking about my business. And my business is journalism.”

MacMullan has expressed her concern over the state of journalism and its willy-nilly, go-by-the-seat-of-the-pants approach, with neither clear policies nor boundaries demarcated.

But this workplace scenario is hardly exclusive to journalism.

And because of the age-old pervasive double-standard, women often pay the price while men are saluted.

Women are faced with the Sisyphean task of playing by different rules. They know it and they do it.

They will continue to pursue their dreams as well they should.

And they will succeed in spite of the deck so often being stacked against them.

Because they are fit to survive.

The fittest.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in October 2017.]