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?

Love seeing all the women hugging each other, even those who're competing against each other. They seem to have so much respect for each other and that is just beautiful to see.

There was a great shot of Jessica Ennis's mum dancing when her daughter won. Really nice.

Also honourable mention to non-woman Mo Farah who just seemed so over-joyed to have won a gold - seems a really genuinely nice guy.

This Olympics is really restoring my faith in humanity.

And I've done many happy emotional tears.

"non-woman" - genuine lol there, yellowraincoat.

Lots of tears here too and big happy :)s

Has the woman considered a 'man' in many people's eyes competed yet? I can't remember her name so don't know what events to look out for. Hopefully there won't be negative comments if she wins.

I think you are talking about semenya (not sure on spelling) she is a middle distance runner.

Ah ok. So hasn't competed yet.

Amoung all the fantastic examples of female strength, speed and sportswomanship, I rather like that pink is a big brand colour for London2012 without it being sidelined as a women's colour.

Seemed to me yesterday (as a dilettante follower, so this may not be correct) that amid all the joyful coverage of 3 GB golds yesterday, there was a huge emphasis on and precedence of Ennis. Brilliant. No sense at all of "just a women's event" - none of that in sight. Well done Ennis and spot on all the excited and congratulatory reporting!

PS I am enjoying thinking about thrilled little girls up and down the country running as fast as they can pretending to be Jessica Ennis, and knowing they are emulating the country's most exciting person and not some also-ran

NameGames, I was thinking that too about the pink!

Me too, I like the pink. And the posies .

The Olympics has started to inspire me already. Normally am such a lazy munter, but went out for a Jess-inspired jog this morning. Only got to the bottom of the road and back, but that is much further than I normally get!!

They keep calling Enis 'the world's best all round athlete'. Not 'female athlete' just 'athlete'.

I really liked it that Joanna Rowsell did not rush to put a wig on for the podium, but seems comfortable with her baldness. And why shouldn't she be, she's gorgeous with and without hair.

Cristina Odone in the Telegraph today. Headline is to do with "girls" and first line was about how she questioned pink and purple for the colours initially but it was ok now as the "girls" were doing so well. Boris article at least talked about women and females (but still called the showing of emotion feminisation).

Both articles did have positive angles too, to be fair

Not a feminist point but I equally valid I think. A writer in the Torygraph today was saying (in a not very politically correct way, but making an important point in a tongue in cheek way) about Saturday's 3 gold medal athletes that it shows that Britain allows the possibility for anyone to do well and cited as them as an example as "the mixed race, the refugee and the ginger kid".

I suppose he could have also said '"the female mixed race" but personally I saw it as a breakthrough that Jess's sex is not now considered unusual enough to even mention.....

I saw some children pretending to be Usain Bolt yesterday, doing his bow-and-arrow celebration thing. One was a girl.

I'm behind all of you, watching on the catch-up, and just watched the vault finals. I was absolutely blown away by the woman who came fifth. Just her wikipedia page makes amazing reading:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oksana_Chusovitina]]

She is 37, has a son, and has coped with both growing up in the Soviet Union and later training on antiquated equipment. She's also seen her son recover from cancer.

I just thought, what an amazing woman, and it seems to me its an important feminist issue that she has a child, not because I imagine everyone wants to be a gymnast for most of their adult life (!), but because it's so good to show that even at this elite physical level, it's possible for her to do that. It's very unusual for gymnasts to come back after having babies.

Sorry:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oksana_Chusovitina

Negative: billing the Team GB women boxers as The Three Ami gos GIRLS

Aaaaaaaarrrrgh! This one has me really worked up. I think it's because "Amiga" is a perfectly acceptable pre-existing word. Calling them "The Three Amigas" would be... tolerable, at least. It would still be a bit WTF (the fact that there are three of them doesn't really justify the label, after all) but, yeah, OK, no worse than the stupid "Magnificent Seven" thing they have for the men. But someone has actually gone out of his/her way to butcher the reference completely just so that they can be referred to as girls. And then they've put a stupid ident together and dubbed annoying music over the top so that you can't possibly miss the sheer crassness of it.

(...and breathe...)

Eh? That's just so rubbish! Many "names" are a bit forced but Amigas would seem to do the job ok whilst still being naff.

Negative: Photos circulating on Facebook of a weightlifter, mocking her for having underarm hair.

There's one that just occurred to me when watching the women's hockey last night. It's so rare to see women on telly or in popular culture having a good time together, doing something fun that has nothing to do with men. It's great to see the hockey and football teams, the rowers, the gymnasts and the swimmers all having fun with other women.

It made me think about popular depictions of women spending time with other women and I realised that you just don't see it very often. It's almost like an extension of the Bechdel Test. Cultural representations of women in groups is always something cringey like a 'night out with the girls' - with the presumption that they're on the pull - or Sex and the City, with its massive emphasis on men and appearance, or - worse - those bloody awful adverts where women sit around in coffee bars discussing constipation . It's always either embarrassing or undignified or trivial. It's as though popular culture cant' think of a good reason why women would want to get together purely for its own sake - we'd only want to do it because it made us more attractive to men.

It's completely taken for granted, on the other hand, that men will spend time together and that it's important that they should do so. Mostly through their shared experience of either playing or watching sport - whether or on the golf course or watching the footie in the pub. This is sacrosanct 'guy time' and every man's right.

Someone gave the stats upthread for coverage of women's sport and I think it's interesting that you really only see athletics or tennis - individual sports. I think women - and young women in particular - are really missing out through not seeing positive representations of women working as a team and enjoying each others' company that we would get from seeing women's team sports on the television. And we also miss out from not having the bonding opportunities that playing and watching sport together can give to men.

Sorry - long post - but I was thinking a lot about this overnight.....

On Facebook last night at least 10% of my 'friends' statusses were along the lines of 'watching the men's shot putt, oh no wait a minute it's the women's' followed by replies of lols, likes, me toos etc.

To be fair Treats, they never fail to cover the women's beach volleyball!

cough