Equality Myth

"At the time, the explanation [for an off-color joke Paterno made about beating his wife] easily satisfied JoePa supporters—who’d become used to this kind of banter. But in the wake of 40 counts of sexual assault against Paterno’s longtime defensive mastermind, Jerry Sandusky, the toxicity of that testosterone-steeped sports culture, and the role it might have played in this scandal, isn’t very funny. The comparisons between Penn State and the Catholic Church may have become too many to count, but perhaps the biggest one is so obvious we don’t see it: Football, like the priesthood, is one of the few places in our culture where being a woman is actually more sacrilegious than saying you’re going to go home and beat one."