It’s been awhile since we’ve blogged about the objectification of female athletes, five years in fact. But since it’s the Olympics that post is trending again.
And that’s odd because just yesterday Susan and I were watching women’s snowboarding on television and looking on in awe as Italy’s Michela Moioli won gold in women’s snowboard cross. Such athleticism. Such remarkable young women. So much talent and skill.
Also, aside from ponytails peeking out from under helmets I had to look at the screen and listen to see whether I was watching the men’s or the women’s event.
I briefly allowed myself the thought that one advantage of the women’s Olympic events is that with all the gear sports announcers stay away from comments about the athletes’ bodies. Hah! So naive. So wrong. Silly me.
Even dressed in snowboarding gear that’s that not enough though for some male sports commentators to keep their focus on athleticism and performance.
I was sad to read this in SF Gate.
“After Kim won the gold medal in women’s halfpipe on Tuesday, Barstool Sports commentator Patrick Connor, who also appears on San Francisco-based KNBR, appeared on the “Dialed-In with Dallas Braden” show on Barstool Radio’s SiriusXM channel and made a series of inappropriate comments about Kim.
“She’s fine as hell,” Connor said. “If she was 18, you wouldn’t be ashamed to say that she’s a little hot piece of ass. And she is. She is adorable. I’m a huge Chloe Kim fan.”
Read more about it here.
Connor has apologized. He’s also been fired.
Grrr. Insert the righteous feminist rant here about the objectification of the bodies of women athletes.
What do you think? Are things better worse than they were? Better or worse in the Winter Olympics?
Photo from Unsplash. It’s an image of a snowboarder coming down a hill, most of the person is obscured by a stream of snow.
Yes! And I’d also suggest that there’s something racialized about this guy’s comments too. So many stereotypes about young Asian women certainly portray them as eager and willing to please men.
Better. She got the gold, he lost his job. There was a time, not so long ago, when neither of those things would have happened. When she would have been thought too fragile to participate in such a wild sport. When he would have been shrugged off as just one of the guys. There will always be jerks & idiots. We just can’t let them get in our way.