What Female Reporter Flirts in the Locker Room?

Female sports reporters have come a long way from the days when they were made to feel unwelcome in men's locker rooms. In fact, some of them may be getting a little too comfortable.

This is from ESPN.com writer Matt Mosley's write up of last night's hard-to-watch Packers-Cowboys game:

Oddest locker room moment of the season: I was walking toward Cowboys defensive end Marcus Spears' locker when I realized a female reporter was buttoning his collar.

Unfamiliar with protocol for this sort of thing, I maintained a healthy distance. After the pampering process was over, the woman interviewed Spears.

I asked Mosley, via email, to identify the reporter in question, but he declined: "I will never tell!!! Except on local radio."

Can anyone imagine a male reporter "pampering" a 6'4", 305-lb. lineman? Or imagine a guy in a ladies' locker room, helping a female athlete adjust her blouse?

It's great that female sportscasters don't have to worry about the kind of harassment that Lisa Olson faced in the New England Patriots locker room 17 years ago. "[T]he life of a woman sportswriter has changed dramatically," declared the American Journalism Review in 2005. "Today, there appears to have been a steady erosion of the blatant sexism that plagued women into the 1990s."

Maybe flirting with partially-dressed players -- in a way that makes even other journalists feel awkward -- isn't the best way to safeguard those gains?