Look away, those of you who are already concerned the direction the human race is going.

In many ways rampant sexism in the US sporting media should not be a shock. Have you seen some of the major US sporting websites that are trying to pass themselves off as legitimate websites? Many of them are effectively soft-core-porn sites, and some of them would make Playboy blush. Whatever about the sites themselves, comments sections can still surprise. Even the comment sections on the more respectable sites, such as ESPN.

The former MLB star Chuck Knoblauch was arrested last week in connection with alleged spousal abuse. This is not the first time the former player has been connected with abusive behaviour. The ESPN story was relatively straight-up, vanilla, in that is merely reported the incident and didn’t editorialize at all. The comment section? Why don’t we have a look at some of the comments?

The flippancy, bare naked aggression and abusive rhetoric used is both depressing and scary. Some thoughts that pop into mind, do these people have women in their lives? Sisters? Loved ones? Do they interact with the female race at work, or in their daily lives? Would they be okay with those women seeing their comment, considering they are okay with anyone possessing Internet access seeing them? Interesting to see a man in uniform, one of the much vaunted ‘protectors of freedom’ making a cowardly, misogynistic comment. I’m not going to allow that to be called a joke, jokes are supposed to be funny. His comment is not funny. It should be noted, these comments were just the tip of the proverbial ice-berg, there are literally hundreds more like them.

In some ways, there isn’t much point in being shocked and surprised by ignorant comments as these. The reason for that is, sexism is absolutely rampant in mainstream sporting media in the United States. Be it Sports Illustrated and it’s cheesecake calendar, or Bleacher Report and it’s ‘frat boy’ image, or be it Barstool sports, who’s owner and creator was once quoted as saying "[E]ven though I never condone rape if you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?"

That’s a major sports website, that kids use.

And we’re OK with that, apparently.