Dear John Cena, I Can See You

And hear you too. Perhaps before I get into the heart of what I want to say, I should probably explain why it matters to me. I have been a wrestling fan for nearly 33 years now. I grew up watching the likes of the Ultimate Warrior, Shawn Michaels, Randy Savage, and the list goes on. I am a fan of yours as well. I admire what you do outside of the WWE ring for Make a Wish. You do a lot of good in this world and put smiles on people’s face, and in these times, that is important.

Perhaps that’s why I was so disappointed watching your promo segment on Smackdown Live this past Tuesday. At first, I enjoyed the segment like I usually do when you are on my TV. I appreciated your recognition of the Women’s Revolution and at how women superstars are equal to their male counterparts. The importance of this message can’t be emphasized enough. It meant a lot to me as female fan to hear someone who is the face of the company as a wrestler note that women are important to this industry.

But then you said something that I wish I hadn’t heard. In the midst of the segment, you called the Miz a pussy. Sure, it was bleeped out, but it was clear what you had said. I was left feeling disappointed and not because I am offended by the word itself. What bothers me is the context in which it was used as means to demean the Miz. In this context, what it implies is that women are somehow less than.

Let me explain a bit further. Whenever one wants to question a man’s masculinity, they automatically do so by calling him a pussy or any other idiom that relates weakness with femininity. What it says when you use the slang terminology for female genitalia in a derogatory manner is that women are less than men. It says that being equated with the female anatomy is shameful. After you had just taken the time to call women superstars equal to the men, you then chose to show that women were in fact not equal. All of this reinforces gender stereotypes and contributes to the toxic masculinity often associated with the sports in general and WWE specifically.

I was reminded of two things. The first was when I was watching Trevor Noah's latest stand-up special. He told a story that ended up with someone calling him a pussy because he didn't want to go out drinking. Noah then talked about how he can't understand why men always want to equate weakness with the vagina. He talked about how it one of the strongest muscles in the body, how it brings forth life. If anything, we should see being called a pussy as an indication of strength rather than weakness. It's the gender bias of linguistic power dynamics.

The second thing I was reminded of was something I experienced at an independent wrestling show a couple of weekends ago. While I was watching a women’s match at the show, I was surrounded by male fans who throughout the match commented on the female competitors’ looks. They called the one woman ugly and fat. They made lewd comments about the other woman in the match. Later on in the evening, I heard a young boy about 8 or 9 call one of the male wrestlers a pussy, just like you had done. I was bothered by it then because it was disheartening to hear misogynistic language from someone so young. From listening to the comments from the adults, both male and female, with him, it was clear why he thought it was acceptable to say. 

By you using this word laden with the misogynistic overtones, it reinforces that this type of behavior is acceptable. It implies that women are less than men. We already have a man in the highest position in our country who has said that he could do whatever he wanted to women because he was a celebrity, including grabbing them by the pussy. Words matter.

Sincerely,

Alaina Pascarella, wrestling fan since 1983