Why The Instinct To Protect Caitlin Clark Is Reviving Harmful Stereotypes About Women Athletes

Physical Play Double Standard

The most recent example of protection came on June 24, when Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas pressed a closed fist into Clark’s neck during a scramble for a loose ball and drew no whistle. The league reviewed the play the next day, upgraded it to a Flagrant 2, and suspended Thomas for one game. In the hours between, Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White described the no-calls as “absolutely unacceptable,” “egregious,” and “utterly disrespectful,” and accused WNBA officials of failing to safeguard a “generational talent.” It was not the first such moment. The Chennedy Carter hip-check, Angel Reese’s forearm, and the Jacy Sheldon–Marina Mabrey physicality followed similar sequences, and each became a national conversation on whether Clark, specifically, was being adequately protected.

Critically, Clark is also a white player in a league that is roughly 70% Black, and the opponents repeatedly noted as her aggressors (e.g., Thomas, Carter, Reese, Sheldon, and Mabrey) are mostly Black women. A protection narrative that is also being built around a white player, with Black women as a recurring threat she must be shielded from, feeds directly into the long history of Black women athletes being characterized as overly physical, aggressive, and classless, and in extreme cases, ‘thugs’ or the infamous ‘nappy-headed hoes’ commentary from former radio host Don Imus, referring to the Black women players on the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team. That standard is not as easily carried over for white women athletes regardless of their style of play. White women athletes who play a more physical game against their Black women counterparts are more likely to be described as merely playing hard. As a result, the most consequential outcome that should be at the center of these conversations is that Clark’s defenders have framed her treatment in a manner that is rebuilding harmful stereotypes across women’s sport.

Harmful Framing

The harmful framing of women athletes as vulnerable and Black women athletes as overly aggressive and classless has been well-established across studies. For example, women athletes are routinely portrayed as emotional, powerless, and reliant on their coaches or superiors, resulting in their infantilization, all while their men athlete counterparts are framed as rational and confident.

Recent investigations of social media discourse have also documented racialized components to framing the actions of white and Black women athletes. Speocifcally, samilar on-court gestures are often interpreted differently depending on the race of the athlete performing them, such as the “you can’t see me” gesutre used by Clark and Angel Reese in the 2023 NCAA women’s tournamnet. Clark was largely praised for her confidence and competitiveness through the gesture, while Reese was condemned online as “classless” and a “thug” for nearly identical behavior. This difference in interpretation of the same action has been noted as a mechanism by which to police Black women.

Ultimately, these processes also do not need to be as overt as what is occurring with Clark and the physicality of the league. Often, this framing and infantilization of women athletes can be perpetuated through instances as small as naming conventions, where women are referred to by first names and men by surnames or women as ladies and men as athletes, which subtly codes woman athletes as inferior, weak, or in need of protection.

Reviving Harmful Stereotypes

The consequences of the current framing unfortuantely extend beyond Clark. Each time hard contact against her becomes a highly visible debate about whether she is being protected, the players who fouled her, who are often disproportionately Black, and in some cases queer, are often classified as aggressors and villains. Importantly, players across the WNBA have called out this dynamic directly in their comments to the media. Phoenix’s Natasha Cloud, asked about the outrage over fouls on Clark, characterized the contact as normal basketball and argued that the reaction was rooted in racism. Angel Reese and Sue Bird have also made comparable observations.

In basketball culture, defending a teammate is typically a fundamental value of the game. For Clark, this unwritten rule has been on full display as her teammates have shown a willingness to physically stand up for her during heated exchanges and her coaches have advocated for more consistent foul calls. Unfortunately, becuase women’s sport has long battled harmful stereotypes of infantilization, and Black women athletes continue to battle racist stereotypes, those instances of defending Clark are shifting from merely showing supporting for your teammate/player into “this fragile star must be shielded from dangerous women” at all costs.

While much of the contact Clark absorbs during games is real and the calls for more consistent officiating are largely warranted, the implicit and stereotypical framing of these conversations are harmful to the sport. Women’s basketball has spent decades fighting to be taken seriously as a physical, competitive, professional product, and any narratives that cast one of its most visible players as a fragile star in need of protection from physical (mostly Black) opponents is ultimately undermining that progress.