Remember that shampoo commercial where the actress flips her hair around and says, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”?

I think ESPN reporter, Erin Andrews is thinking that exact thing right about now, after hearing the comments of sports writer, Christine Brennan regarding Andrews’ nude Peeping Tom video which hit the internet this week.

If you haven’t heard about this, here is the background: Erin Andrews is a hot, ESPN reporter. (At 31, she qualifies as a true *f.a.t.ty - Fit After Thirty Hotty). A perverted fan drilled a hole in a hotel wall and secretly videotaped her in the nude, and then aired it on You Tube. Christine Brennan is a sports writer who is less hot than Andrews. Brennan decided to write about the incident, and instead of finding fault with the Peeping Tom, she found fault with Andrews. I couldn’t believe Brennan’s comments:

Somehow, Brennan believes Andrews brought it on herself. She stated: “If you trade off your sex appeal, if you trade off your looks, eventually you’re going to lose those.” She continues, “part of the schtick, seems to me, is being a little bit out there in a way that then are you encouraging the complete nutcase to drill a hole in a room.” 

Brennan further states, “She didn’t deserve this. I want to make that crystal clear. But she’s got to be smarter and better.”

Oh really? She didn’t deserve it, Ms. Brennan? Really? You don’t say. Because we all thought that attractive women deserve to have perverted creeps stalk them and invade their privacy by filming them secretly in hotel rooms, and then have the footage pushed  out to the universe on the web. And Ms. Brennan, isn’t the idea that a woman has to be “smarter and better” the same double standard that all females have been fighting in the workplace since they joined it four decades ago? 

So basically, you are saying that attractive females are held to an even higher standard than average looking women, not just by men, but by women as well. Women like yourself.

It’s sort of an old stereotype that presumes that pretty and sexy women can’t inhabit the world of sports in any capacity other than as the arm candy of a sports star. I guess it’s not really sexism at play in Brennan’s attitude so much as it is beautyism, if there is such a word. Or looksism. Or attractivism. Whatever you call it, it’s not sitting well with me.

I wish I could say Brennan’s comments ended with those I’ve already quoted. But no. Brennan continued: “There are hundreds of women covering sports in this country who haven’t had this happen to them. I wish it didn’t happen to Erin, but I also would suggest to her if she asked (and she hasn’t) that she rely on her talent and brains and not succumb to the lowest common denominator in sports media by playing to the frat house.”

Ms. Brennan, perhaps intrusive videos have not been made of the other hundreds of women covering sports, because maybe they aren’t as stunningly gorgeous as Erin Andrews. Did you ever consider that?But who cares? The fact that Erin Andrews is hot doesn’t mean she deserved to have her privacy invaded. And even if Ms. Andrews does play up her sexuality on camera for her job, why should this warrant a blatant intrusion by a lunatic, into her private life?

Another thing gets me about this last Brennan comment. Why does Brennan act like being beautiful, and having brains and talent are mutually exclusive traits? While Brennan is chastising Andrews for playing to the frat house, maybe she should look in the mirror and consider that Brennan herself, has more or less joined the frat house with these type of comments. But not just any frat house. A good ol’ boy frat house from the 1950’s where you might expect to find members justifying their rape of a sorority girl because she wore a short skirt. 

A frat house where men marginalize woman and judge them by nothing more than looks, and assume a pretty co-ed got an A in math class by sleeping with the professor. A frat house where you might find the less attractive, non-sorority girls (Brennan?), jumping in bed (literally and figuratively) with the frat boys, not because they want to, but out of a desperate attempt to gain popularity with them.

I don’t know, Ms. Brennan - which sounds more desperate to you? And is it possible, that just maybe,  it is you who needs to be “better and smarter”?

*It should be noted that Google and You Tube have removed the video of Ms. Andrews from the web, and hackers (the video makers themselves, perhaps?) have added fake posts which contain viruses, so searching for the video and clicking on anything claiming to be the video, could be detrimental to your computer.