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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

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EDITORIAL: Full-time in the NFL

If there was one person who encompasses what it means to defy gender roles, it’s Sarah Thomas. This past week, the Mississippi native vowed to tuck her hair into her hat as one of nine new referees hired by the NFL for the upcoming season. This makes her the first full-time female official in the ?history of the league.

The introduction of a female into this traditionally all-male profession sent media outlets and professionals into a whirlwind of praise for the NFL. But some people, including Mike Florio, creator of NBC’s “Pro Football Talk,” criticized the announcement on the grounds the NFL hired a woman in an attempt to hide bad press.

“It’s fair to at least wonder whether a desire to undo the considerable damage done to (the NFL) due to the ... Ray Rice case and a longstanding lack of sensitivity to domestic violence influenced the process that resulted in the hiring of Thomas,” Florio wrote in a Pro Football Talk blog post. He continued to note that Thomas should be prepared to be treated “exactly the same way any other official would be treated.”

The NFL is a widely respected institution that has helped shape American culture for the past 95 years.

With professional football being a well-loved pastime of both men and women, it only brings question as to why it has taken so long for a woman to make waves by being hired into the industry.

Thomas sees no disadvantage to being a woman in a masculine occupation, nor does she believe anyone even thinks to question her gender, so long as she continues to make the right calls.

“When you’re out there officiating, the guys don’t think of me as a female,” Thomas said in an interview with the Washington Post. “I mean, they want me to be just like them — just be an official — and that’s what I’ve always set out to do.”

Sports writer Rick Cleveland believes Thomas’ ability to “just be an ?official” works to her advantage.

“If you notice officials, it usually means they’re not doing their job correctly,” Cleveland said. “I can’t remember a time that I’ve seen a game that she’s officiated when I noticed her. You don’t have to be a man to tell whether somebody jumped offsides or not, and you don’t have to be a man to learn the rules of football.”

The NFL should be commended for opening the door to gender equality with its referees, but to say this comes with the knowledge that this is no easy task. There will probably still be opponents of a woman officiating a man’s game, and it only takes one controversial call for someone to claim it was invalid because “it’s just her time of the month.”

Having a woman on the field also brings into question how the coaches and other referees will treat her. A woman’s gender does not mean she is any less knowledgeable of the rules and regulations of the game, and that is a concept that many coaches will have to grasp. Sexism on the field is bound to happen, but it is up to Thomas to remain as levelheaded and objective as any other official would. If she shows herself to be as reliable and competent as the male referees who have come before her, there’s no limit to the growth of women hired to officiate in the NFL.

With the league under so much scrutiny already because of previous domestic violence cases, many people are led to believe Thomas’ hiring is all for show. However, because we are in the 21st century and gender roles are no longer as conforming as they were 50 years ago, it’s about time someone like Thomas steps in to prove it doesn’t take a Y chromosome to learn the rules of football and officiate a game well.

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