There have been several hoops to jump through on the journey to gender equality in sports, especially basketball, but things are finally looking up. Salaries for WNBA players are increasing, and the league’s popularity is at an all-time high, thanks in part to rookies like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. The WNBA has always been a role model for C-suite diversity, and while NBA front offices are nowhere near having equal gender representation, with each passing season, more teams employ female executives. On the court, only a fraction of referees are women—but that number is also growing. Today, there are eight full-time female refs in the NBA, one who’s non-binary, and 65 men. It is the most women the league has ever had at one time.
Four-season veteran Simone Jelks encapsulates making history as one of these refs in four simple words: “We are the shit!” Ahead of the NBA finals, which kick off tonight between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks, Jelks and her fellow NBA refs open up about what it’s like working in a male-dominated profession, advocating for equality in and out of the arena, and the pressures of having 20,000 very, ahem,opinionatedNBA fans screaming at you on the regular.
