View from the Cheap Seats is an extension of the newsroom, which is frequently a site of heated debate on topics ranging from the extremely serious to the utterly ridiculous. This web edition features the views of print edition columnists Thom Barker (Wednesday) and Calvin Daniels (Saturday), as well as web exclusive content by Michaela Miller (Thursday) and Devin Wilger (Friday).
This week: Should sexism in the Olympics be taken seriously?
Girl power?
So, we are starting with the premise there is sexism associated with the Olympics. And how could you not? The worst example was probably when the Chicago Tribune noted the wife of a Chicago Bears lineman (not even the quarterback or a star receiver, but a lineman) won an Olympic medal as if her Olympic accomplishment was not notable in its own right.
Our own Peter Mansbridge, venerable anchor of CBC’s The National, stuck his foot in his mouth commentating about Gisele Bundchen, the world famous supermodel opening the Games. “Isn’t that Mrs. Tom Brady?” he asked, referencing the woman’s New England Patriots quarterback husband.
Of course, there’s huge precedent in Peter’s personal life. Cynthia Dale, his gorgeous, talented (ok, I’ve always had a bit of crush since Street Legal) wife almost never gets mentioned (including here, apparently) without being linked to Mansbridge.
Opening the Olympics with a supermodel is another conversation in sexism altogether.
And then there’s Ron McLean, who couldn’t manage an interview with Penny Oleksiak—now THE MOST DECORATED CANADIAN OLYMPIAN IN A SINGLE GAMES IN HISTORY (sorry for shouting)—without asking her about her hockey playing brother.
Of course, with Ron it might not be sexism so much as hockeyism since most of the time he doesn’t seem to recognize there are any other sports.
Perhaps the most ridiculous thing of all, though, is beach volleyball. I personally do not understand how beach volleyball appears to be the showcase sport of the Rio Games. As far as I’m concerned, coverage of it should be relegated to highlights of gold medal points, as with table tennis and shooting and the like, not full coverage of every bloody match.
But it is those official uniforms, those silly, tiny bikinis the women are forced to wear—unless you get a religious exemption apparently, which is yet another sexism topic—that are emblematic of the overall sexism that permeates everything from the makeup of the IOC committee to preferential scheduling for male events.
Should sexism in the Olympics be taken seriously? I don’t even know if the Olympics themselves should be taken seriously.
I can tell you one thing, though, we ought to have a tonne of respect for our women athletes in Canada because without them, as of this writing, we would not have a single medal.
-Thom Barker
No Room
Humans are terrible. We always find a way to ruin everything. Such is the case with the Olympics. I watched the women’s hurdle races, only to watch the terrible interviews after. I am not positive on the athlete’s name, but after she crossed the finish line, sweating and dripping with victory, a microphone was shoved in her face. Now while the normal question is, “How do you feel” this interviewer asked, “Why did you choose that hairstyle?”
Are you kidding me? This woman had put in weeks of training for this moment, and you ask her about her hair?
Or how about the headline tagging the female athlete to her husband instead of the multiple awards she’s earned on her own?
Its things like these that irk me. Our societal expectations of women have seeped into the sports world. Who cares what they look like? They just won a medal for your country. Why are we so concerned with looks?
Or course we look to point the finger at someone. In the case of sexism, always blame the other sex, right? Not always. The interview mentioned above was conducted by a female reporter. Talk shows are covering the Olympics, where most of the hosts are female. Talk shows cover social topics, so when they talk about the Olympics, it’s in a societal sense. We have females judging other females on television, and everyone just accepts it. We see it on the TV, so it must be okay to do in real life.
Let’s flip the situation. We have female reporters that will go into the hockey dressing room to interview the team right after a big win, but would we be okay if a male reporter went into a female dressing room? We would we be okay with a football player being referred to by his wife’s name and accomplishments?
Sexism is something that should always be taken seriously. It may be just a few petty headlines and interviews, but they add up eventually. In the world of sports, there is just no room for it. We should be judging based on skill, not looks.
-Michaela Miller
It’s not just Rio
The moment someone tried to credit Katinka Hosszú’s husband with her success in the pool, we were going to have to talk about sexism at the Rio games. Even though women’s sports were consistently entertaining and gave us Canada’s best moments – and will continue to in the future, Penny Oleksiak could fairly be called Canada’s greatest swimmer already and she’s a mere 16, imagine what she’s going to accomplish in Tokyo in four years – you still had a lot of clueless commentators trying to take the focus away from them and onto nearby men.
And yet the Olympics are actually better than most sports coverage. For example, the female athletes were on TV, on a major network, in a prime time slot. This happens only at the Olympics, I have never seen a women’s hockey game on television, and the Olympics was actually the first time I’ve been aware that women’s rugby actually exists. Part of the problem is going to be my own fault, I’m not really actively watching the local sports networks. But then, I’m also surrounded by people who do, and not one of them has ever talked about the exploits of the Calgary Inferno.
If you don’t know what the Calgary Inferno is, they’re the team that most recently won the Canadian Women’s Hockey League’s Clarkson Cup.
The argument is often that women’s sports are not as entertaining as men’s sports. In Rio, that was proven to be untrue - the most exciting swim at the games was when Simone Manuel and Penny Oleksiak tied for gold – but the perception that women’s sports aren’t entertaining are a self-fulfilling prophecy. A young boy can dream of fame and fortune from any sport they choose, a young woman has the Olympics, and even then her hard work could be credited to the nearest man. Of course you’re not going to get the same standard of play from female sports, there just isn’t going to be the same talent pool to draw from, because there are fewer incentives for women to get into sport in the first place.
Sexism might be a problem at the Olympics, but at least we had women on screen.
-Devin Wilger
Needs addressing
In some regards this weekís question has only one logical answer.
Should sexism in the Olympics be taken seriously?
Of course it must be.
While there are times we like to think media manufactures stories out of thin air, it is usually a case of where there is even the slightest whiff of smoke, a fire lies hidden.
We might like to think we are an evolved society, finally grown past issues of ëismsí, racism and sexism leading the pack, but it would be folly to believe we are anywhere close to such enlightenment.
In the case of sexism it still permeates society, from the workplace, to advertising, to movies and television, and yes into sports.
A worldwide event such as the Olympics, with its ëbreath and it’s caught for media somewhere reality, the issue gains some added relevancy or perhaps more accurately gains some added press.
Women’s sports have enough hurdles to clear in terms of being better recognized against the same sports played by men. In a few cases; golf, tennis, curling, women have inched closer to equality in terms of respect, tournament pay-outs and profile, but in general lag well behind in sports in general.
To have to deal with sexism, real and perceived, at the same time they battle for relevancy on a broader scale, only steepens the hill they must climb.
They should simply be viewed as athletes trying to achieve the podium just as male athletes do. But views on femininity and looks often cloud that effort.
It is a societal issue, a societal short-coming, really a societal shame that is most certainly real, and the only way to correct the situation is to talk about it, and grow beyond it.
- Calvin Daniels
