So, the NFL is planning to hire its first women as referees.

And holy cow, are dudes freaked out about it.

This week’s installment of my sports column, Down And Distance, over at CultureMap deals with this in depth. In the meantime, here are some of the comments that went up after I filed the column, and the sheer frightened rage they contain.

At first glance, I assumed this guy called the woman ref for the NCAA and UFL being quoted “honey” because he was trying to be condescending. Based on his sample dialogue, though, the only women he’s ever heard speak are in kindergarten, so he was probably just being friendly.

My very favorite of the ridiculous arguments — made several times in the response to the post at ProFootballTalk that these are culled from — is that a woman in a position of authority might make biased calls because she could secretly be having an affair with one of the players. Which is true and all, but if we’re talking secret scandals, it’s also totally possible that a male ref could be making bullshit calls because he’s protecting a dude he’s having an affair with! Did I just blow your mind?

Because the most popular and widely-watched sport in the country desperately needs to drum up some publicity by infuriating a tiny handful of the craziest parts of its fanbase, while the rest of the people who care about the game can say, Oh, okay, it’s catching up with the 21 century, cool. Also, a lot of current (dudely) NFL officials are really old, but they just don’t use them as umpires or line judges so they are safely away from the action. They could do that if some of the eventual women on the field are smaller, too!

Oh, pretty sure no one is touching, dude — and probably not looking, either.

Really, this comment kind of sums it up — the fear and loathing of women “taking away” something that “belongs” to men is the theme of all of these comments, regardless of if they pull the “women are too emotional” card, “women aren’t knowledgeable enough,” “women would get clobbered by a linebacker,” or whatever. It’s toxic thinking for a lot of reasons.

Stay tuned for the column on Monday, where I write about this thoughtfully and don’t just make fun of people. (Though I’m sure I did that, too.)

ETA: This week’s column is now live. Give it a read, will you?