We Love Our Bad Boys, But Not Our Bad Girls

We now know Tonya Harding’s story, and it isn’t pretty. Bad attitude. Foul language. Mean friends. Not exactly a role model.

But forget the knee-whacking for a moment. If Harding were a guy, she’d be rich.

Impounded cars, homemade outfits, broken skates--all history with a simple gender change. A male athlete who scraped and clawed his way out of Harding’s life to become a world-ranked amateur could sneer with impunity and still pay the rent.

OK, criminal behavior can cramp a man’s income. Witness Mike Tyson. But let’s just take all individuals currently serving time in prison out of this debate.

What we have is two completely different standards. And don’t try to argue that Harding doesn’t win often enough to rate endorsements. That hasn’t stopped Dan and Dave of Reebok fame.

Being bad can be great for male athletes. Bad means commitment, aggressiveness and makes for good anecdotes. Bad is something that the men who shape our images of sports understand. And bad is often irrelevant when corporate America opens its checkbook--if the athlete is male, like that recently retired basketball superstar who had a weakness for gambling.

Charles Barkley has made millions getting right in our face and making sure we know he’s not a stinking role model. Mike Ditka was the cuddly curmudgeon of this year’s Bud Bowl. And no weekend ballplayer in America picks up a Jose Canseco bat and whines, “I can’t use this. This guy was charged with a crime.”

But if the athlete is a woman, revise everything.

American capitalism celebrates female athletes in pretty sports like gymnastics and ice skating. Shot-putters need not apply. And “our girls” better be pure. Harding’s edges were always too sharp for her to be America’s sweetheart.

This doesn’t take anything away from Nancy Kerrigan simply because she is positively perfect.

But it is a little sad that Harding seemed to be one of the few people in America who really believed she would finally become rich if she only won a gold medal. She actually thought that was all it would take.