Positives and negatives of the Olympics.

[kickassangel]

Hopefully a fairly light hearted thread but thought we could keep a tally of the plus and minus sides of the Olympics.

Plus
Women from Saudi, and more women from other Middle Eastern States.
Women included in the military flag bearers
Future sports people fairly even m/f balance (and their sponsors)

Minus
Still more events for men than women
Still more men taking part, and given better status/accommodations etc
Women carrying the country names, and the bowl things during the parade.
Mainly women nurses with the children on beds.
Paul McCartney getting the 'men' to sing first and the 'girls' to have a go second.

I was hoping that I'd noticed some more positives, but apparently not.

What did other people notice?

I do.

David Beckham's career is over anyway.

Anyway, I apologise for digressing. And just to be clear, I am absolutely not detracting from Vicky's gold medals and achievements. She's an amazing cyclist.

I really don't want to get into a discussion about whether women should be appearing in their scanties again. Done to death on here.

I don't think there's ever really any need to be scathing of another woman, actually, I think we get enough shit from society without being started on by other women.

Why on earth not? I'm sorry, but why not? If a woman (not talking about VP AT ALL of course) does something worthy of scorn, why should she not be criticised simply because of her gender? How is that equality? I'm genuinely puzzled by that.

If she does something worthy of scorn, sure. If she conforms to gender stereotypes, not so much.

Sorry for misunderstanding you then. It wasn't quite clear what you meant. I think we'll have to disagree on the gender stereotypes thing - personally I think VP has a massive, huge opportunity here to promote her sport through her achievements alone rather than relying on her perceived sex appeal.

I found that whole article a bit cringey and full of negatives.

It is really awful that she feels worthless if she's 'mediocre' and I know the point of trainers is to push you, but her dad is made out to be quite unpleasant (style of writing, I think). It comes across as if she doesn't have the ambition, it's all her dad pushing and her own sense of shame at being 'mediocre'. Given that's coming rather more clearly from the writing around the quotations than the quotations, I am a bit at that.

Why can't the writer believe she has ambition, why does it have to be dressed up as 'OMG, I didn't really want to but I couldn't disappoint dad'.

That struck me more than the photos, personally.

I also thought the article was a bit but once again I was happily to see the pro-woman, almost feministy type comments below. All the comments criticising her were voted down. What on earth is going on?!

I didn't see that - so are we concluding that when people are happy and proud of British women, they become feminists for the day?

Excellent!

I did like the bit where she said that yes, she is emotional and vulnerable but what does it matter as long as her legs are the fastest? She's showing that so-called "girliness" and athletic prowess are not mutually exclusive. Good point IMO.

That's true.

I would have liked to see the interview transcript though - that article is so heavily skewed it's very hard to make out how she was actually coming across.

The DM, skewing things?! Don't be silly LRD!

Re. the patriotic thing, I reckon when people unite as a nation they forget about divisions of class and gender. But it's really nice this time that women are also at the forefront being supported by both men and women.

It makes me think that if we had a high-profile British female tennis player then there wouldn't have been such a fuss from the menz over the equal pay at Wimbledon...

That might well be true!

It is amazing to find that people are discussing women everywhere, for what they've done. It's great!

messy I've often found that the comments section on the DM website is broadly liberal and their horrible articles about cellulite on someone's thighs will often result in loads of comments about how shit the DM is. The Guardian comments sections is far worse in my experience, loads of sexist, cynical, worly-weary shite.

I think it's good to have a feminine athlete in Victoria Pendleton. I'm not massively into sport, but it is great to see that "femininity" and sport aren't mutually exclusive. I can relate to her a lot more than I can to someone who doesn't show any emotion and is just 100% about sport.

Any sportsperson who is a bit human and not all media-trained out of all recognition is interesting. People will always be interested in that sort of person - that's why we all love Bradley Wiggins at the moment.

Well I agree with that bit about Bradley, yellow :), and also with LRD - that women's achievements are on the front pages daily at the moment. A great positive.

I've seen some horrible comments in the Daily Mail, but I agree, CiF is awful.

I think I'm a bit 'meh' about what VP says, but, yes, it's fantastic she's there.

In a way, I think it's probably quite good that there are women getting to this amazing level who are not all the same in their attitudes, even if I personally would probably disagree with them if we ended up chatting as we're chatting on here ... does that make sense? I mean, we could sit down and debate about things all day but I like that there's such a wide and representative range of attitudes within the women athletes.

Same as with their bodies - I have really enjoyed seeing women who are tall and broad-shouldered looking fantastic, fit and healthy, because it's good to get away from the stereotype that healthy women all have to look like the special K advert.

Yes, it's true LRD , it's great to see all these different body shapes which are all taken as equal because they are ideal for their purpose.

I think I just feel bad for VP as she seems to be spoken about so much as a woman/an emotional wreck/for her relationship/body rather than as a sportswoman. Her victory in the keirin was simply breath-taking, a feat better than any other I've seen so far in these games. The BBC were in awe, but on here, there's negative commentary about how she chooses to present herself and it seems totally ass-backward to me.

The woman is an utter legend, she is simply an amazing cyclist who is doing stuff that no other cyclist has done on the track.

I know what you mean, yellow.

I'm sure people have seen this article, but a couple of statistics stood out for me:

'Outside the Olympics, only 5% of media coverage is dedicated to female sports, the vast majority of it tennis. A 2011 study also showed that women's sport received just 0.5% of all UK sports sponsorship, with 61% going to men and the remainder to teams.'

It's from here: www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/04/london-2012-women-beat-men-medals

Right, another positive and negative, and sorry, it's from an article again.

Positive: Natasha Jones quoted as saying: "It's a male-dominated sport and some people just don't want women in it, simple as ? We're here to change that perception. We are the boxers ? not the women boxers, we are just the boxers."

Nice.

Negative: Women's boxing was banned until 1996, because .... 'The British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) denied women a licence to fight until 1998 on the grounds that premenstrual syndrome made them too unstable to box.'

WTF?

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/03/women-boxers-first-olympic-bouts

That's shocking, LRD. Good attitude from Natasha Jones though.

Another positive - Gabby Logan who presents the round-up programme at the end of each day. Very knowledgeable, very respectful of the athletes who come in to speak, really great presenter.

It's strange to see a 'Gabby Logan' praised here!

But yes, good attitude from Jones and also from her coach, who sounds very keen to say that sex is a non-issue. The GB men and women train together, too which is interesting - I wonder of how many sports that's true?

Positive: Watching the Olympics now, our commentators have been absolutely gushing over the strength and 'sheer power' (quote!) of the high jumpers!

What??!! LRD that is just wow!!!

Also - I like Gabby's hair

Jesssssss!

I was just watching the women's medley relay final in the pool. Team GB made the final but didn't get a medal.

Sharron Davis interviewed them straight after the race, they had their arms around each other and you could tell there was so much team spirit and unity there.

Contrary to the Patriarchy's popular belief, women can work and compete together without any cattiness and rivalry!

One of the swimmers started crying, Sharron started crying too and they hugged! It was a really genuine, warm moment of solidarity and women supporting women.

Then I caught the news about Jessica!