ESPNs Mina Kimes shares sexist hate mail: just another Monday

Any woman knows every day is a minefield of sexism and misogyny. But sometimes a woman will post their version of what they have to deal with and it’s still shocking. The other day, ESPN sport reporter, Mina Kimes, posted an email she received from a viewer who accused her of not knowing anything about “male sports.” Kimes, who graduated summa cum laude from Yale, was a business journalist prior to joining ESPN in 2014. In addition to her written sports profiles, she hosts and writes several NFL shows, including NFL live. For almost a year, Mina hosted the ESPN Daily podcast. Suffice to say, Mina knows plenty about sports, let alone ‘male sports.’ But that doesn’t stop men from sending her sexist crap all the time. So Monday, Mina posted one of their messages to Twitter

Sir this is a Wendy’s pic.twitter.com/Wg5gZamL1N

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) January 3, 2022

Most of the comments to this tweet were supporting Mina. A few tried to make jokes, especially about the guy’s name being Charlie Brown. A few losers tried to support the guy’s argument – that didn’t go far. Mina responded to her own tweet by saying:

I understand that “Don’t amplify” argument, I really do. But I get asked by women every day whether it’s normal, and I want people to see: It never ends and it has absolutely nothing to do you with.(sic)

When a fan wrote, “man WHAT lol” in the comments, Mina replied, “just a typical monday lol” I don’t think she’s exaggerating either. I’ll bet she does receive crap like this every Monday. And probably the rest of the week too. I don’t need to break down how insulting his comments are, you can all read them. His arguments are based on her being a woman, not any examples of her technique. She doesn’t post the rest of the email. I shudder to think what he feels Mina is “suited for.” A couple of fellow female sports anchors replied to Mina, thanking her for putting this out there and letting the public know that yes, it happens all the time. Kayla Anderson from WKRN in Nashville said she’d just been told to go back to “working at Ulta.” And Drea Blackwell from KSBW thanked Mina for being a role model… and then a man replied to Drea that she and Mina had responded to the sexist remark the wrong way. I mean, it never flipping ends.

What’s really sad is Mina got into sports reporting because ESPN was so impressed by an essay she wrote about how she and her dad bonded over the Seahawks. Football is deeply personal to her. I hate that this is being sullied for her. Men don’t get to have that world alone. Plenty of us sat with one or both parents or someone else dear to us and bonded over sports. I can speak circles around my husband about football.

Fortunately, another person who had Mina’s back was her co-host mentioned in the email, Jeff Saturday:

This is absolute trash! Mina is fantastic at her job and has earned everything she has at Espn. I can also tell you that I have reached out to Mina a number of times so that she could teach me about the use of analytics in football. She makes our NFL team better.Pipe down Charlie https://t.co/SLlhd6h6cW

— Jeff Saturday (@SaturdayJeff) January 3, 2022

Because Jeff is a former NFL player, some people feel he was patronizing about needing Mina’s help with analytics. I think maybe he responded emotionally, but meant well. Plus, players generally understand the stuff that pertains to them, but not what applies to the other positions. So Jeff may actually need Mina’s help for the whole picture. I like that he wanted to back Mina up. Others think he was trying to White Knight her. I don’t know, he would’ve looked like a jerk if he hadn’t said anything. Jeff was mad. I’m mad. Mina was mad. The only person that doesn’t deserve to be mad is Charles Brown, who is an @$$hole.

Photo credit: Instagram and Twitter

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