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"Go make me a sandwich" - A'ja Wilson on the first time a male tested her as a female athlete
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- "Go make me a sandwich" - A'ja Wilson on the first time a male tested her as a female athlete
Being a great athlete doesn't always earn you the respect you deserve. That is especially true if you're a woman competing in a sport long dominated by men.
A'ja Wilson found out about that firsthand. The No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 WNBA Draft experienced sexism even though she had already established herself as a big-time hoops prospect. The experience came with a familiar set of remarks that questioned the place of women in sports.
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Years later, the Las Vegas Aces forward reflected on when those comments first became part of her basketball journey. What she went through offered a glimpse into the side of the game that fans don't often get to see.
Sexist remarks
For decades, organized basketball was available only to men. For instance, the first NCAA Men's basketball tournament took place in 1939; the women's division followed in 1982, nearly 50 years later.
The same goes with the NBA. The league, then known as the Basketball Association of America, was founded in 1946. It merged with the NBL in 1949 and officially became the National Basketball Association. Meanwhile, the WNBA didn't exist until April 24, 1996. By then, all the 50 Greatest Players had already played.
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So when men see an upcoming female basketball player showing up, they usually meet her with skepticism, or worse, disrespect, in the form of sexist remarks. When Andscape's Martenzie Johnson asked when Wilson first experienced being tested by men as a female athlete, she said it was much later in her basketball journey.
"Probably when I got to college. High school wasn't bad, middle school wasn't bad," Wilson, who went to South Carolina, said . "But probably when I got to college, that's when it all started coming about, the whole 'Stay in the kitchen' and 'She's not as good as such and such.' And it just seemed that I wasn't as worthy as another athlete."
The irony of it all
Wilson didn't say when or in what college year it happened, but it's ludicrous nonetheless. She was named a Third Team All-American as a freshman after averaging 13.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks in only 20 minutes of action.
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She only got better from there. A'ja averaged 22.6 points, 11.8 rebounds and 3.2 blocks per game in her senior year, claiming the Wooden Award and Naismith Award, along with a First Team All-American selection.
For some reason, Wilson said, men don't give women the benefit of the doubt in basketball. They often feel superior, and even the best female athletes face skepticism.
"They just think they can just beat us female athletes one-on-one. I don't know why our skill level gets diminished because we're females. But, yes, I have been challenged to play one-on-one against a lot of males," Wilson stated.
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Why does she think men do that to female athletes?
"I don't know. I really don't know. It's just a part of them," said Wilson, then a rookie for the Aces at the time of the interview. "They just feel like they have a say. You don't have people coming at Serena Williams telling her, 'I can beat you in tennis.' I think basketball is one of those sports where people can play it at a young age and be bad at it yet still think that they can beat a person that's on a pro level because she's a female."
"It goes from the whole 'Stay in the kitchen' jokes to 'Go make me a sandwich' joke and that has nothing to do with my abilities to score a basketball," she added.
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Wilson laments gender disparity in sports
Men's basketball always generated more revenue than its women's counterparts. According to Business Insider , the NCAA Women's Basketball tournament just earned nearly a quarter of the men's tournament revenue.
However, Wilson believes that's no reason to offend the women. She lamented how even the Gamecocks showed favoritism to the men's team. In 2017, Wilson recalled that South Carolina's women's team won the national title while the men's team reached the Final Four.
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Yet the school stocked men's team championship merchandise, even though the women won it all.
"I'm not taking anything away from the men's team — it was a big season for them — but we went on to win it all and while we had the spectators and support, we still didn't get half of what they got for almost making it to the National Championship game, when it comes to credit for our win," Wilson wrote back in 2021.
Maybe that's just how it goes. Money makes the world go round, they say and if the men continue to rake in the dough, the disparity won't go anywhere.
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This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Oct 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
