Comedian Samantha Bee comes to female Seattle council members’ defense

The five Seattle City Council members who voted against vacating a street that could have brought a new arena to Seattle have been on the receiving end of vitriol from angry sports fans.

Related: The stunning hypocrisy of the Seattle arena ‘no’ vote

All five against the street vacation were women. Those who supported it were men.

Samantha Bee, host of TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” came to the women’s defense during her show Monday. Bee, a former correspondent for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” introduced “The Seattle Seawards” in a tongue-in-cheek segment about how the women are receiving hate for doing their jobs by protecting the city’s maritime jobs and putting “ports before sports.”

“Why do these crazy, sports-hating Harpies stand between a town and the team it doesn’t have yet?” Bee asked. “Did it want to build a ballet arena or a Sex and the City-plex or something?”

KIRO Radio’s John Curley and Tom Tangney revisited the topic after watching Bee’s show.

Tom Tangney: “I tell you, John, they’re becoming celebrities in their own right, these Seattle City Council members … I do think gender was accidental in this case, because, as I’ve said, if Nick Licata was still on the Seattle council, he would have voted it down. However, as a sports fan, I would admit that, whether it’s my gender or not, I might be more open to finding a justification for vacating that street.”

John Curley: “Sure, that’s where people bring their own bias to the council. If you’re a big supporter of the arts and a bill comes before you and you have the opportunity to cut a check for $80,000 or $1 million to do public art, if you like art, you vote for that. That’s all it is. And I would assume that most of these women don’t attend sporting events, so when it comes up for basketball, I’m gonna do one over the others.”

TT: “We don’t know that. They may be sports fans. But the gender breakdown … more men tend to be sports fans than women and so that’s the hunch that many of these sports fans who are ripping these women for being women basically are saying.”

JC: “Would it be at all relevant to quiz all of them and ask if they could tell us about a basketball game at all; some of their favorite players, or did you ever attend a Sonics game?

TT: “Although their gender doesn’t mean that’s why they voted a certain way, you could ask what kind of level of sports fan you are. And the thing is there may be more non-sports fans than sports fans in Seattle, let’s face it. And if that’s the case, then they are representative of us.”

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