to think that the male dancers on Strictly..

[RagamuffinAndFidget]

..have to put up with quite a lot of low-level harassment from the presenters? From Claudia in particular. One of the new dancers, Gleb, is constantly subjected to 'jokes' of a vaguely sexual nature - lots of references to his body and taking his shirt off, and a couple of the returning dancers have to put up with the same thing too. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into it but I think if it was male presenters making those kinds of remarks about the female dancers I think a lot more people would be complaining.

I have pulled up a work colleague over this behaviour before now.
She continually harassed a visiting male colleague using sexual innuendo, has actually tweaked another male colleague's nipples and really really doesn't see how inappropriate her behaviour is

The men take it in jest, but can you imagine a male doing that and the uproar there'd be?

I've told her I will report it next time.

rebecca very glad I made you 'LOL'. Are you 12?

I'm allowed to have an opinion and times are changing. There seem to be a lot of double standards with men these days and that could get more pronounced in the next 20 or 30 years. I am allowed to wonder what kind of world my DS will face.

I agree that t has now become acceptable to view men as sex objects on TV in a way that would cause outrage if the positions were reversed.
There is an advert for Sky ( I think) with Rebel Wilson and an attractive young man with no top on and she is coming up with excuses to get closer to him. This would never even be considered with the sexes reversed ( and rightly so)
Last year Rita Oras letchery on The Voice got very uncomfortable at times too.
There is a worrying trend, especially in adverts to portray men as inept idiots or sex objects

Ugh, yeah

I can't stand sexist and objectification of any variety

Claudia et al need to grow up, they are embarrassing themselves

I agree that the comments are really inappropriate but I think it's mighty fucking annoying to see women wringing their hands over comments when fellow women put up with those comments and far far worse every single day. I genuinely wonder why there are always women lining up to say 'poor men' when men are subjected to behaviour that is ridiculously mild in comparison to what women face?

To add: while I think the comments are unacceptable I think it's no harm for some men to see their fellow men being treated like sex objects in the way that women have had to put up with for so long. If they see men being subjected to it it might actually get into their thick heads that actually it's not nice for anybody, women or men, to be treated that way.

I don't like it either - and have been reflecting on how to handle my disapproval to frame it as unacceptable to my DDs who LOVE the show. I find some of the innuendo and leering unacceptable as family viewing and am not comfortable with the girls watching it. And there is a lot of comments about the appearance of the women too - Darcy is very quick to talk about how female celebs look rather than how they dance.

I am also deeply disappointed that Claudia & Tess have sunk so low. They are both intelligent and capable women (and its a grand thing that such a prime time show now has an all-female presenting team) and I think they should be able to be innovative and witty rather than taking refuge in objectification of all the dancers.

Anita is all over Gleb (not in a dancing way), she's thoroughly pleased to be his dancing partner.

Now, I don't mind Claudia. I quite like her in fact, but I do agree that her on screen perving over some of the male dancers is unnecessary and does her no favours. Tess however is dreadful on all counts (other than looking lovely) so terribly fake & even unwatchable at times.

I've often thought it was a bit of a double standard. Darcy in particular when she drools over some male dancers. I'm certain if one of the male judges said something along the lines of not being able to concentrate on the dance due to being distracted by a female dancers chest there'd be uproar.

I love Strictly but I agree, the male objectification is a bit off sometimes.

Craig has said almost exactly that about male celebs in the past purple. Len seems to now speak only in pre-scripted soundbites (unless he's bollocking a pro for some random dance infraction), but back when he came up with his own comments I do remember him being quite interested in the attractive young female celebs.

'Surely it's not OK for anyone and we should just stop it altogether?'

Absolutely right. Its not remotely helpful to say that men are just getting a taste of their own medicine. This is not the playground and we should all be better than that.

Claudia needs to give it a rest and Bruno is absolutely shameless about leching over the male dancers, and Craig makes dodgy comments on a semi-regular basis. Yuck to all of them. Len's puntastic jokes make me cringe myself inside out but that's a separate issue.

It's laughable that Strictly described itself as a family show as part of its reason for not allowing two men to be dance partners with all of this grim perving going on!

I'm not sure the 'no two male dance partners' criticism is fair though, TBH. They may have just rejected CJ De Mooi for being an entitled numpty.

I don't know him from a hole in the ground pearpotter, so you may be right!

But isn't this what some elements of modern feminism wanted - the culture of the Ladette, all grown up in the 21st century?

Personally I find it as distasteful as men drooling over women, but, as far as I can tell from my contact with 16 - 24 year olds, it is all just fun, innit?

Don't know about SCD as I don't watch it, but I totally agree with what you are saying.

I felt really uncomfortable about the utter hysteria over Aiden Turner's topless scything in Poldark. Vile double standards, and it can impact on people's real lives.

A few years ago a male colleague was constantly subject to groping and comments of a sexual nature from a woman we worked with. He hated it, and if it had been a man doing it to a woman he would probably have lost his job. We tried to get to to make a complaint, but he wouldn't because he thought people wouldn't take him seriously - and he was probably right.

That's sad Indrid - no one should ever feel like they can't speak up about harassment, whatever their gender.

FWIW, I don't think it's OK for Craig or Bruno to make those kinds of comments either. It's supposed to be a dance show, yet half of the discussion is about someone's dress or someone else's pecs. It's all just a bit 'off', IMHO, whether it's directed at one of the male participants or the female ones.

And I don't think we should accept this sort of stuff when it's directed at men just because some women have to deal with it. Isn't feminism supposed to be about equality, not putting men down?

I like Claudia, she manages to come across as taking the pee out of herself when she does it and she's generally pretty funny.

Darcy absolutely makes me cringe with all her being distracted by a female dancer's partner.

Oh shut up - it's fun and he certainly doesn't seem to mind!! Ola makes a pretty penny doing semi nude calendars, fine with me, she's a lovely looking woman! I think it's quite nice. If you've got it flaunt it, a bit of jealousy methinks!!