Alright everyone, women are viable sports fans. In addition, women are able to write about sports. Women are also dedicated, passionate athletes. We even go on radio programs and talk about sports when we get a chance! A fellow female blogger, Fat Louie, graciously agreed to talk about her blog, opinions, and insights with me. The adroit curator of “Women’s Sports Blog: Because Mama Can’t Help Your Jump Shot” had this to say:

Fat Louie is a Hoosier who lives in San Francisco. The only downside to this arrangement is the commute time to Mackie Arena. She's over-employed and underpaid in her day job, and in her free time takes photos, finds tasty things to eat, and dreams of joining a softball league. One day Yahoo deleted her entire press photo archive due to 'creative' captioning, and she decided the web needed someplace funny, queer-friendly, and informative for women's sports fans.

1. Why do you think women's sports don't get as much coverage as men's? What can we do to change that?

The qualities prized in male athletes are often considered 'unfeminine' in women and leagues and media spend a lot of time trying to prove women athletes are actually girly and non-threatening on the inside. That's counter-productive. Also, it's a vicious circle because media outlets have zip coverage and then say it's because of lack of demand, but in fact it works the other way: if you show the game and aren't patronizing about it, people think its valuable and become interested. A lot of viewers don't know that softball has some of the highest ratings on ESPN, for instance. But we don't want to lose the qualities that make women's sports more down-home and fun and saner, while chasing a fan base that we may never get, either.

2. What do you believe is the most significant event in women's sports has been in the last 50 years?

A lot of the more visible events have been flashes in the pan. The '99 World Cup was supposed to change the world, and it was amazing to see all that attention even if some of it was sexist, but in the long term it just further highlighted that the institutional support wasn't there. And if it wasn't there for white, mostly straight, upper-class athletes it really wouldn't be there for everyone else. So the most significant event continues to be the passing of Title IX, which creates the infrastructure whether there's attention paid to it or not. A tiny fraction of girls used to play sports in high school. Now it's one in three. Women can make a living as professional athletes. That's all Title IX.

3. As the curator of a women's sports blog, do you get any flack from naysayers or smarty-pants spammers very often? How would you characterize your support and readership?

Thus far I've made a conscious decision not to try and publicize myself on a site like Deadspin. If I get more exposure I'll get trolls and I also worry outing gay athletes to some of the bigots on the larger sites. Right now people come to me more organically from already being fans of a given athlete or team, readers of the amazing Women's Hoops Blog, etc. That's men and women both. I have a very quick temper so I've got enough trouble dealing with the polite readers I already have. But I'd also love a wider readership. It's something I weigh every day.

4. What have been the biggest challenges for you covering women's sports? Do you find it difficult to find events/stories to blog?

My biggest challenge has actually been finding enough time to even cover part of it. Once you start looking you realize there's so much, from the incredible paralympic athletes to the struggles to get women's sports started under repressive regimes. Women's sports have so many unique angles. I would love to have this be my full-time job, but unfortunately that's untenable right now. Also I have to work hard at staying positive and staying focused on the women and not getting distracted by the haters.

5. How effective do you believe women are as sports reporters? Why do you think men would rather listen to someone like Jim Rome or Mike Golic than an equally knowledgeable woman?

My blue expando-chair is a better sports analyst than Jim Rome. I think men in broadcasting feel this tremendous amount of entitlement to air their opinions even if they're total morons, whereas you have to be undeniably great to break into the business as a woman. And make no mistake there are amazing women journalists at a local level and on the national beat, they're just lesser-known. The recent Kolber/Tafoya thing with MNF highlights the problem, which is that the big networks don't place women in respected analytical positions and so then it's easy to dismiss them as just being bimbos and expendable. Tafoya would be better in the booth than a lot of guys they've had, but that was never an option. The place of women in football is shown very clearly by the 'boob angle' on the cheerleader shots, which is intentionally alienating to women but we ignore it because we've learned to put up with it, and also stereotypes the hell out of men. The whole male pro sports culture can be toxic for both men and women. Which is why since I've started the blog I've spent almost no time in that culture and it's been wonderful.