Naomi Lang, class of 16, is very cool. I know this because I am very cool, and when I met up with her last Tuesday morning to fan girl her blog, “Female Athletes Network” (formerly known as “Female Athletes of Boston”), we were wearing the same shirt. That coincidence, of course, shattered any potential awkwardness, and we were quickly carried away into an overeager discussion of pajama shirts, FAN, and kickass feminisms. For the highlights of our conversation, as well as the crazy-exciting news about FAN, keep reading.
Why She’s Awesome (one of the reasons) . . .
Earlier this year I started a blog to portray images of female athletes in uniform, in action. It’s called FAN: Female Athletes Network [formerly known as Female Athletes of Boston]. The idea started when I googled female athletes and the first page of google was all “sexy female athletes” or “female athletes you know are good in bed”. I knew that had to change, so I decided to start featuring female athletes doing sports. I ask people to send me action shots in uniform. Some women in the beginning sent me pictures of them on the podium holding a metal, and that’s awesome! They won! But I want to keep it to the in-the moment, the action shot. I think that’s something all male athletes get photographed doing, whereas women, they’re always on the red carpet in heels, or Serena Williams on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the chair.
What’s next for FAN . . .
I’ve actually made a website. It’s called FAN — Female Athletes Network. FAB (Female Athletes of Boston) was great, but I want to cover every city. I was thinking of doing FAM, Female Athletes of Melbourne, and the like, but then you get FAT, Female Athletes of Tennessee, and that’s not what you want. The new name is perfect because now it gets across the point that I want people to be fans of female athletes.
My mission for FAN is to become a nonprofit and an online blog. I want to empower female athletes and inspire women to play sports. These female athletes are real; they’re saying exactly how they feel about one performance or performing or their sport overall. If someone read this blog, saw that realness, and said, “you know what, I’m gonna join a team”, or “I’ve never considered myself sporty but I’m gonna have a go” that’s the goal.
Why Dean Khurana would love FAN (#inclusivity) . . .
FAN doesn’t feature just varsity athletes, because I want it to be everyone. Even from the start, it has been that way. In the main photo, Hayley [third on the left] does club field hockey. When we took the photos, she asked, “Do I belong here? Why do you want me to be in it?” but she belongs there; that’s the point. Sport is sport. If FAN helped inspire more girls to be varsity athletes, which would mean that more girls are confident enough to perform at that level, that would be epic. But to me, sport is anything that has a team and invokes hard physical and mental effort and is working towards a goal. Yoga, dance, hiking — they’re all sports.
For example, Emma Lipshultz was just featured on FAN for her yoga. She talks about how in the beginning, she didn’t think yoga was an athlete thing, but she gets so much peace from it mentally. She is in a room of women and guys who are doing it, and it’s a time to have a time out and rest from the rest of the day. Which is what all sport is really:it’s a time to have an alternative reality.
Why FAN will ~never~ be #fitspo . . .
No! I’m so against that. I was telling someone this yesterday: FAN is the opposite of the whole #fitspiration/#cleaneating/#dieting trend. I’m not going to turn this into a page where I start selling kale smoothies [laughs]. I think those kind of posts are self obsessive. This is female bodies with an athlete mindset. The difference is that you do your sport with the goal of having people say, “wow look how fast she can run, how far she can throw”, instead of having people laud your fitness. That’s why it’s cool that I’m the administrator of that page. I’m not going to ever let anyone post any naked photos with their six packs. Because I hate that! That’s not inspirational. I look at that, and I don’t know about other girls, but I cringe, or I feel shitty about myself. I just don’t like it.
Why she’s not complaining . . .
What I love about this page is that it doesn’t waste time complaining. These women are writing posts that are really positive. They don’t even bring up body image. Let’s just talk about how awesome it is to win a championship and how you had to run all those suicides to get there. Let’s not talk about how good your legs look or even acknowledge that you’re going against what society wants. I guess that’s the point of what I’m doing: I’m trying to say, “ok forget the whole media and society and what they want, let’s just show ourselves as athletes”. It doesn’t start with that negative. That negative is the victim mindset. And I don’t think females are victims, at all. And this page is proof of that. We’re not even acknowledging it.
The adventures in her future . . .
I’ve planned a six month tour around the US after I graduate. I’m applying to a couple of fellowships to hopefully get grants for my travel, and if that doesn’t work I might start a kickstarter campaign. I intend to go to every major city across twenty-two different states. I want to spend a week or two in each of them going to college campuses and high schools and interviewing female athletes. I’m hoping to be posting everyday, so that FAN USA becomes a national thing.
And last but not least . . .
I just found about this this morning: Mather has an art gallery on the bottom floor. They just said I could do a big FAN exhibition. I’m going to have huge photos of female athletes everywhere. I’m thinking it will be up the week after spring break. It’s going to be sweet.