http://www.smh.com.au/olympics/news...ume-over-team-gender-bias-20120719-22bb7.html Both Australian and Japanese women's teams are being treated second class to the men's. The Japanese footballers are gold medal winners! This thoroughly disgusts me and I felt the need to share and rant. How many of the women's events - except for the sexually overt beach volleyball - are given equal coverage I wonder?
This is indeed disgusting. I think in this case though the coverage is not the issue in question here, the coverage is always going to be difficult to keep equal in any sense especially when under scrutiny for things like gender bias. (Although since you mention the beach volleyball, the outfits have been defended by some of the top athletes in the sport - whether this is due to freedom of movement during competition or some form of empowerment is unclear, to me at least.) I would be interested to find out exactly who is responsible for this happening, I'd imagine it would be the relevant Olympic committees of the countries in question.
I'm not against the outfits in terms of 'the sport', I'm against the deliberate sexualization of a professional sport and Olympians, and weight of coverage that gets due to that. The Olympics is meant to transcend political and racial barriers, but immediately falls flat at gender ones. EDIT: Yea it's the relevant committees in each country, where, again, men's sport is favoured - gets more money.
The Olympics hasn't met it own Olympian ideals for a long time now - probably going back to the Atlanta games in 96, perhaps even further. The presence of overt and heavy-handed sponsorship (no company, other than the 4 main sponsors, is allowed to use the fact that it supplies the London Olympics in their marketing material) and the presence of professional sports and sports-people, such as football and basketball have watered down any idea of "fair sport" that the Olympics used to be about. Frankly, the inclusion of "sports" like beach volleyball is the final nail in the coffin. What next, Nascar?
Why would you avoid posting this bit: Can't help but feel you're twisting knickers for the sake of it, lowering yourself to the level of a two-bit journalist. And shouldn't the thread title be "Gender bias on the way to the Olympics" if anything?
Mens sport is generally favoured because people consider men to be better at those sports (which in many cases is a perfectly reasonable view), and if you look at the sports where women are comparatively more competetive you'll see more interest in the women's teams. I don't think favouritism in individual spoorts in going to go away while there is still a male/femal division within that sport. However I still believe there is a general idea that women are just worse at sports which needs to be challenged. As for the original point, you should treat all your teams the same, regardless of how much support for them there is or how good they are.
No, I think you're missing a deeper point: Why do the men's and women's team require separate budgets: why not cover by the sport not the sex? Just dividing it up by height is pathetic; it's the best part of a 24 hour flight and business is far more comfortable than any economy seat for anyone. It's just one factor of a greater second class nature in the Olympics. I agree that sport overall has its weights, but the Olympics is meant to even all that out - everyone competeing at the same time in the same place.
What Porkins said. It is usually the specific sport association or part of it which organizes the travel. So they should complain to their own "leaders". @Bindibadgi: because usually woman dislike being part of a organization where they would be a small minority and request having separate budgets ? Now they complain because they have a separate budget ?
Men's sports have more money in them because they draw bigger crowds and audiences, because men are leagues ahead of women in nearly every sport ever invented. While I understand it seems harsh, there has to be a point at which we recognise that men are out competing women, drawing larger crowds, more money, etc. As hard as it is for many people to hear or read, women are second class in most sports.
Because they are separate teams. If you like we can propose that all Olympics events should be gender-mixed, but I suspect you'll see far less women competing throughout if that was the case. How many women would make the basketball teams? How many women will make the 100m final? Separate teams = separate budgets = self-determination. None of the budgetary figures have been published so we can only speculate whether they're even or not and on the reasons why. This assumes that all needs are equal within each discipline. Would you include paralympic teams too? Each team, regardless of gender, able-bodiness, religious practices etc. will have its own needs and it should be down to each team to determine how best to meet those needs.
You can see bias in all sport. Look at Gran Slam tennis, the bias is towards women. Equal prize money at Wimbledon, women play at most 3 sets, men 5. Serena Williams played 71% of the games Federer did this year for the same prize money. That's not to mention that Serena is in less competitive matches and so can earn more from doubles. Bias is everywhere.
The prize money also ignores the fact that no women is within the top 200 players in the world. The 200th best tennis player does not win huge sums of money, despite being far far better than the No. 1 women's player. As you say, bias everywhere. It's a complicated issue, sporting authorities have to try to match fairness of outcomes with equality of opportunity. Tough stuff.
A huge number of Olympic sports rely solely on physical strength, stamina and build. Unfortunately nature has dictated the physical differences between men and women for rather a long time, so we'll never see true gender equality with that in mind - it's apples and oranges. Women are, however, perfectly capable of challenging men in plenty of sports, such as motor racing, shooting, equestrianism etc, where traits such as mental stamina, reflexes and hand-eye coordination take huge precedence over sheer strength. It is purely a cultural block that more women do not excel in these fields, and as time passes you will see more and more equality in sports where such things are possible.
The peak of motor racing actually requires one to be incredibly well built physically. There is a good reason that there aren't any women in Formula 1.
No arguments here, but that's 24 drivers (plus test drivers) out of many tens of thousands of competitive seats in lower formulae.
Strong physical fitness is more a prerequisite rather than a factor that contributes towards skill at motoracing. I'd say the reason there are no women in Formula 1 is that there are far fewer women who are interested in motoracing.
I don't see anything unfortunate with that at all, men are men and women are women. It's meant to be that way, and that's a good thing. As far as equality goes that's not possible either because we're not equal in the first place. We are different. That being said: we have an equal value, but that's something completely different.
Words of wisdom right here ^ I guess I meant unfortunately for those misguided enough to think that men and women will be of equal physical ability. I, like you, do not subscribe to that theory. But I do agree that women are worth every bit as much as their male counterparts, and physical inferiority is heavily mitigated in other areas.
