Positives and negatives of the Olympics.

It's because the NI athletes can choose to compete for either GB or the Republic.

Apparently UK excludes the Channel Islands so competitors from there would be homeless. Ours is not an easy country to name!

Re. The boy / girl thing. I think the commentators have been more or less even in referring to "boys" as often as "girls" and they have been gushing with praise for the skills of the "girls".

The only thing that is a bit is that when talking about individual women they do seem to credit the supporting coach or the team or the person that discovered their talent more so than the men. But I do realise that is hardly hard and fast statistical evidence as I've probably been watching more women than men.

Team UK would make more sense, sure.

GB is inaccurate though isn't it. Strictly speaking, as I understand it, Great Britain just refers to the largest island in the group of islands that make up the UK. So, really, it excludes the Isle of Man (where Mark Cavendish is from), the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Isle of Wight, Anglesey....... Team UK would make much more sense.

It is relevant since there are Irish women in the Olympic team as well. Had the team been called Team England or Team Scotland I feel sure people would have voiced their disapproval.

Equestrian events are so non-sexist it makes me proud!

From what I can make out from other threads - GB is the name we are registered under. It's a shortened form of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. NI athletes have the choice of competing for GB or Ireland.

It's a good point though, I'd like to know why it's not team UK, does anyone know?

I have been really enjoying how much people are talking in a positve way about what's going on - my mum, who isn't typically into sport, or patriotic stuff, or especially into feminism, was gushing about it all yesterday and saying how lovely it was to see the country all get together behind these women.

bureni this is a thread about women in the Olympics so I fail to see how that's relevant.

Positives... Team GB done really well
Negatives ... The team name is incorrect, why not Team U.K and why exclude N.I from the team title?

May I just go back to the fact that some were getting exercised about women being referred to as girls when men are called men?

I've just heard Hazel Irving refer to the Brownlee brothers (24 and 22 respectively) referred to as boys and Clare Balding has just referred to the members of the dressage team as "the boys". The particular boy in question who had just finished the dressage was aged 45.

It is not the first time this has happened.

Re football: as for women being prepared to watch men's football - personally I don't as I find them to be somewhat overpaid divas who roll around the ground if they get as much as a broken fingernail. Contrast that with the captain of the GB women's hockey team at the Olympics who was back on the field within a few days after having surgery on her broken jaw.

Market blah blah blah aside, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some serious positive discrimination in favour of women's sport (funding, coverage etc) seeing as in the past it was the victim of such intense negative discrimination for the dumbest of reasons.

Such overt discrimination might no longer exist (or has just renamed "market forces") but men's sport still benefits from that past discrimination just as women's sport suffers from it. Who knows where women's football would be now if it hadn't been banned by the FA all those years ago.

I don't have Red Button. Though I believe I could have if I chose different options on our cable package, but then I'd have to give up other things I like.

I don't take my daughters to see any sports at the moment, but I don't understand why it would have to be daughters - that emphasis is horrible. Men and women watch men compete, why should we be taking only our daughters to see women compete? That's indicative of the whole mindset that hurts women. It's one thing to suggest women give something that they have missing out on an extra push to get it going, but why are we responsible for creating the whole market?

I think the whole emphasis on football is wrong, I think the professionalization of sport really damages it's grassroots participation. The BBC as a national public broadcaster ought to be doing a lot more to cover a wide range of sports and especially the less professional ones (who can have the commercial channels fighting over then to pay for rights). And they have been doing some, but while I've flicked past men's lacrosse and hockey games from time to time, I've never seen women's. In fact I'm trying to recall a time when I've seen any women's sport broadcast without it being part of an event that also included men. (If you're tempted to search for an example, I'll point out I'm not actually saying it never happens, just that it's rare and in high contrast to men's coverage).

And it's not just about televising events. The only time I've seen women's team sports in movies is on the odd occasion the whole movie is about it "Bend it Like Beckham" and "Whip It" being the ones that come to mind. It's rarely used in the casual way it can be for men. Women don't currently participate as much as men, but then they don't tend to wear three-inch stilettos and low-cut blouses when they are senior, front-line law enforcement officers, but it hasn't stopped directors from portraying them that way. It is a shame directors don't use some of their artistic license to show a positive outlier.

Treats, agreed. Sorry to make this UK-centric, but if my daughter is one of the lucky ones, has anyone raised the issue of participation within their child's school? Do the sports teachers have a view on why girls appear to lose interest? Are there any sports teachers or coaches on here?

And going back to the Olympics, did any of the LOCOG legacy stuff talk specifically about increasing female sports participation? All I ever seemed to hear about was selling the stadia!

namechangeguy - we know that. That's why I said that it would be good to see the BBC make some of the running here (no pun intended.....)

That's great for your daughter. But other young women won't be motivated to seek sporting opportunities for themselves unless they are inspired by outside influences and are reassured that it's a normal thing to want to do.

I would not try to claim that women's sports is covered as much as men's, but there is stuff out there. The Solheim Cup is another. Sky are really pushing to make this equivalent to the Ryder Cup, which has to be great for women golfers. Outside of the BBC though, it's a numbers game. Sky, ITV, C4 etc will only cover events they can sell advertising around. That requires bigger attendances, to show companies that there is an audience. Obvious stuff I know, but in a revenue-driven environment like commercial TV, money talks.

I am lucky that my daughter went to a school where she could play football, lacrosse, tennis, table-tennis, golf, cross-country running and a host of other stuff. This was primarily driven by a brilliant headmaster who saw the benefits of sport for all. The UK needs more head teachers like him.

Ahh, I see namechange. Sorry I misunderstood!

I'm not British so I can't comment on the BBC3 thing, but in Aus we have Channel One which is a sporting channel. I'd love it if woman's AFL was backed financially and shown on there too, as there is currently no coverage of women's footy, see the support grow and then it could be broadcasted regularly on the other channels like men's AFL.

My mum is a super fucking annoying mad footy fan, she says she has no interest in watching women's footy if it was on telly because 'she enjoys the power and strength of the men.' It's weird because she's been raving about the amazing women in the Olympics, but I believe she just holds the natural stereotype here that AFL is for boys. Why wouldn't she? We don't fund or attempt to encourage little girls to play footy. When I did Little Aths as a little girl, there wasn't even a girl's section. :( I don't know if that's changed, but I seriously doubt it. I quit Little Aths fairly quickly because the options for girls were only soccer, tennis, basketball and athletic events, while the boys had so much more. Since a great deal of Little Aths funding comes from the AFL, it leaves little girls out in the cold quite a bit. Little Aths is also used to scour for boys to join the AFL, so not exactly equal. Or even close.

At least with AFL, the funding and coverage has to come first because there is no option for support. I think they should be encouraging young girls to play footy too. ATM it's up to adult women to attempt to make teams on meagre funds and no community support, which is a damn shame.

namechangeguy - everything you say is correct - showing more women's sport makes it 'normal' and we want to see increasing amounts on telly. (not sure about your point that women's football would then inevitably become more cynical, but that's beside the point).

BUT - you seem to think that showing women's football on the red button is sufficient. That's not 'normal' broadcasting of football. There's a difference between making something available for somebody to seek out if they want it, and promoting it as something that the channel think we will enjoy.

I'd really like my DD (who's still not yet 3) to get into sport when she's older. I didn't do much as a teen and I feel I really missed out. Personality-wise, she's very sociable and loves playing with other children, so I think that a team game like football or hockey would suit her really well.

But there's a HUGE difference for girls and boys in terms of motivation for continuing sport. A boy who's really good at a sport can hope to develop a career in it. There's absolutely no reason for a girl to continue with sport - except tennis or athletics - unless she really wants to do it for its own sake. This is ABSOLUTELY a reflection on the different commercial markets for sport - I do see that.

I just think it would be nice to try to develop a market for women's sport. I don't see why the BBC, in particular, can't devote a bit more time to it.

But I was also making a broader point about how very infrequently you see women on television or on film enjoying doing things together that don't involve men in any way.

Lurking, what I meant was that one of the best things about watching the women's game is it's honesty and integrity. I am afraid that money could spoil that. It has ruined my enjoyment of the men's game. It was a comment in praise of women's football and the attitude of the players. Why do you find that strange?

Skrumle, normalising participation includes players and spectators. If girls see live action, they will be encouraged to play themselves. So if the BBC show more football, or Sky show the netball league live, like here;

www1.skysports.com/other-sports/news/12416/7442068/Netball-on-Sky-Sports

then it becomes normalised.

I don't see why me pointing out that coverage of women's sport on TV is increasing has raised hackles. Is this not what you want?

My post was in response to 'the Olympics is the only time you get to see women's team sports on the television.'

i got that, thanks...

Hand on heart, how many people follow women's football closely outside of the Olympics? The only time I have ever watched it live is when my daughter played for her school team.

i don't - i have no interest in watching sport in general. however, because it's been all over the TV recently i have watched chunks of tennis, gymnastics, swimming, athletics, etc.

are you seriously suggesting that people who enjoy football in general would immediately switch over if in the middle of an update on men's football there was a section on women's? Or if the highlights on a saturday night included snippets from two matches played by women?

this isn't about finding a massive audience devoted to women's football - it's about normalising women playing sport.

What a strange comment namechange.

Women watch male football despite these things, so we should 'be careful what we wish for,' hence we see women do the same thing.

How does that even make one iota of sense? If a woman is a mad footy fan and wants to see women's footy, why on earth would those things matter? She watches the male version regardless.

AFL (Aussie Rules Football) only recently started a female..In one state believe. Not mine.

Couldn't go see if I wanted too. :(