Erstellt am: 9. 7. 2013 - 17:58 Uhr
Too Unattractive To Win?
When Andy Murray won the Wimbledon Men's Singles title at the weekend, the headlines in Britain erupted in joy. "Andy Murray ends 77 years of waiting for a British champion" wrote the Daily Mail.
This headline irked many fans who pointed out that the wait had been much shorter. The famous 77 years of hurt refer back to Fred Perry's win in 1936 but in the meantime four British women became Wimbledon champions. The last of these was Virginia Wade who won in 1977. According the Guardian these female triumphs have been "air-brushed out of history." Is this sexism?
Personally I find that harsh. Newspaper headlines are by nature elliptical. In fact, Brits had only had to wait one year - Jonathan Marray won the doubles title in 2012 with his partner Frederik Nielsen of Denmark. And as a tennis fan, I have heard much in the media about Wade's achievement, which happened before I was born.
CC BY-SA flickr.com User robbiesaurus
Much more troubling was that the BBC presenter John Inverdale greeted the victory of the women's champion Marion Bartoli with the casual remark that she was "never going to be a looker". These remarks were "insensitive" admitted the BBC and Inverdale, who alongside tennis specialises in the hyper-masculine world of rugby, described his words afterwards as "ham-fisted". He said that he poked fun at Bartoli's looks "in a nice way."
So, if Inverdale meant it in "a nice way", then perhaps this is all a harmless joke and the complaints to the BBC and waves the comments caused in social media networks must be manifestations of a lack of sense of humour? No. If you look at the vitriol published on Twitter from users who were for some reason offended by the looks of Bartoli, it's obvious that there is a real problem. "Someone as ugly and unattractive as Bartoli doesnt deserve to win" wrote one user.
There will always be trolls on internet forums and on Twitter, of course, but as the host broadcaster, you would hope Inverdale might feel it was his job to counter the misogyny rather than to contribute to it and, in his position, he could be accused of legitimizing this casual sexism.
But why did he feel the need to comment on her looks at all? This is the vital point - his comments were not just insensitive, they were totally irrelevant. Inverdale is a sports reporter, why not stick to sport. His justification is absurd, suggesting that the fact she wasn't a tall blonde "Amazon" like Sharapova was a motivating factor in developing her high-intensity combative playing style.
The men's champion Murray was judged purely on sporting achievement, the women's champion Bartoli wasn't. Why not?
"I'm glad I don't feel the pressure to look good all the time when I am competing" says skier Eva Walkner, the 2012 Freeride World Tour vice-champion. She says she has never personally suffered any sexism in her sport but says that was left open-mouthed in shock four years ago when a representative charged with putting together a ski team for a well-known ski manufacturer suggested he had found a fantastic female skier in the USA but wouldn't pick her for the team because she didn't look attractive enough.
Thankfully, it's still predominately smooth turns on steep lines that make you are a star in women's free-skiing, says Walkner, adding that that may be partly "because we mostly have all our kit and helmets on."
But in other more skin-revealing freestyle sports such as surfing, the situation is different. Walkner, a keen fan of surfing, has been disturbed by a recent advert produced by Surfwear brand Roxy to advertise a world tour female surfing event the Roxy Pro Biarritz 2013.
The clip features a young blonde woman, later revealed to be pro surfer Stephanie Gilmore. At the beginning we see her half naked in bed, then she languidly strips for a shower, suggestively strokes her board and then waddles off into the water as the camera pans in on the tanned and now water-splashed globes of her backside. She paddles around a bit but at no point in in the video does the surfer actually catch a wave. A surf video with no surfing but a surfeit of bare flesh.
Walkner was not alone in her criticism of the marketing strategy. One unimpressed viewer, posted: "Why aren't pro female surfers good enough to promote on their skill alone? Never seen a male surf comp promoted like this." Other Twitter uses said it would be a more appropriate advert for lingerie or shower gel rather than a meeting of athlete professional athletes.
On its Facebook page, Roxy was unrepentant: "Obviously, there's been much conversation around the video we recently released. We believe all athletes are naturally beautiful, in and out of the water. You certainly don't have to be sexy to be an athlete, & we also believe it's not wrong to be an athlete and to be sexy, if you choose to be. We don't judge one to be better than the other & we don't believe in excluding one for the other."
Now of course, it is not wrong to want to appear sexy or attractive in the media if you are already a sports star. It is not only very human but it is lucrative, too, for men and women. Lindsay Vonn has every right to appear airbrushed and blemish-free in magazines if she wants to present herself that way, and David Beckham, who consentingly became more famous for his underwear, than his free-kicks can display his underwear on magazine billboards.
But there is no question that Becks and Vonn are independently respected for their athletic achievements. For them selling their appearance is a matter of "as well as" not "instead of". Vonn is taken seriously for her skiing.
But for many women in high-level sport, the patronising continues, hitting a notorious low-point when in 2004, Sepp Blatter, the head of football's governing body FIFA decided to publicise his thoughts on attract more followers to the women's game:
"Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could, for example, have tighter shorts" said Blatter. "Female players are pretty …, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men."
Nine years on, Blatter is still in charge and the German channel ZDF has decided to advertise its coverage of the women's European Championships, set to start in Sweden tomorrow, with a clip of a woman kicking a ball into a washing machine. The clip is called "Ball Sauber". Na Servus.
The results of all this can be measured in sports participation. "We want young women to be participating in sport," Catharine Lumby, a Professor of Media at Macquarie University told the Brisbane Times in response to the Roxy advert clip, “We don't want to tell them it is all about looking good and their appearance."
How did Bartoli respond to Inverdale's remarks? With the dignity of a true champion.
"Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I'm sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes. And to share this moment with my dad was absolutely amazing and I am so proud of it."
Don't let the idiots spoil your day.