The misogynoir towards Angel Reese

I am here because I am getting extremely tired of the YouTube algorithm feeding me misogynoir anti-Angel Reese content, but the wild thing is, as soon as I start diving into any WBNA videos, the algorithm keeps feeding me the Reese hate again.

A primer on this topic, for those new to it: Reese and Caitlin Clark are close in age and thus have had overlapping careers. Reese is a Black woman, Clark white. The “rivalry” between these 2 players shot to infamy in 2023 during a championship game in which Reese made a hand gesture that was a callback to something Caitlin Clark had done in a different game.

It wasn’t an especially rude gesture—Reese was bragging that her team was about to win the championship and get a ring for it, which they did.

However, the media seized upon the moment and accused Reese of poor sportsmanship. Clark herself later told the press that both she and Reese were competitive people and that the gesture was not poor sportsmanship but rather an expression of their shared intensity as players.

A lot of other things have happened since then, but I am not going to go into all of that. Instead, I want you to focus on the big picture: Caitlin Clark, a white woman, and undeniably a young phenom who might end up having a great career, became the darling of the media for a very long spell, and it started with supposed “disrespect” from a Black woman. Jill Biden even put her foot in her mouth over the incident.

Fast forward to today. There is a small but vocal online ecosystem devoted to hyping Caitlin Clark at the expense of Angel Reese and, occasionally, other Black WNBA players. Please note that there are MANY more Caitlin Clark fans who just hype Clark up without having to put anyone else down, but they’re mostly just fans who cheer her on at games or as viewers. They’re not the ones making a new video every few weeks to harp on how Angel Reese is a talentless hack while Clark saved women’s basketball.

Please watch the excerpt above from a recent video from this anti-Reese genre. Keep in mind the following: pro athletes being out with an injury is very common; at the time that this video was posted, Clark was also out with an injury; there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that either of these athletes is faking an injury.

These commentators make a meal of Reese 1. not providing enough updates on her condition to suit them and 2. not sitting on the sidelines of games during her side-lining from injury.

If you’re a woman and someone has accused you of faking an illness or injury, this entire song and dance will feel very familiar to you. Misogyny prompts many people, including healthcare providers, to view female patients through this lens of dishonesty, and many women, myself included, have had to suffer unnecessarily as a result. Tale as old as time: you go in with a serious disease and leave with a referral to a psychiatrist.

In my opinion, this anti-Reese narrative around her injury is clearly an example of misogynoir instead of just plain old misogyny because of the contrast we can see in how Clark’s injury is discussed. Clark’s groin injury is “legitimate” while anything Reese says about her own condition is just a way of abandoning her team when the chips are down.

I’m extremely tired of all of it and I want more people to start speaking on it and being aware of it. Someday, enough people will speak up, and the anti-Reese faction will learn that we see them for who and what they are.

To be clear: these are people whose primary interest in a Reese-Clark rivalry is using it as an outlet to bash a Black woman with nonstop vitriol, always viewing anything she does in the most negative light possible, and doing snide things like mocking her appearance, etc. And they are obsessed.