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?

Yes, complete let-down the closing ceremony. Flag bearers ugh. I kept saying why? why? And WHY did we need to honour women's fashion? The token male was an insult. I didn't get any sense of it celebrating sport at all. We didn't need a repeat of the Jubilee concert. No wonder the Queen sent Harry. Shame on you director(whoever you are)

I don't even want to watch the closing ceremony from what I've heard.

What a joke to follow 'The Equality Olympics. :(

The closing ceremony was rubbish in about 900 different ways. I nearly went up in flames when the friend I was with pointed out the model-type women accompanying each flag. It seemed so odd to put on a closing ceremony to the world's biggest sporting event with hardly any sport in it. They could have done a really good job with some imagination - why not reference London 1908 and 1948 as the opening ceremony did? - but instead it was a dull parade of pop has-beens. Total waste of public money.

Interesting article on the closing ceremony -- it's worth a read in its entirety but the site sems to be having some issues today and I can't get it to work on any mobile device so I'll C&P the bit about gender here:

Kim gave a similar bashing to gender, sensitivity perhaps heightened by how the past three weeks has been an extraordinary Olympic Games for women; with significant, real steps taken. The ?fashion biz? segment in the Closing Ceremony was an unfathomably regressive bit of choreographed objectification. It felt deliberate, as if designed to rein in any aspiration or hopes that briefly glimpsed light this past month. Huge photos of girls in posh frocks. Superstar models appear, celebrified, apeing their runway work on flatbeds. It wasn?t a fashion show in itself, or a true celebration of design (which would?ve told us something about design). It was more like the revenge of the owner of the commodified clothes-horse: as if womankind needed to be ritually re-objectified, after a short respite month of being valued in a better way. Ramming back home the wider truths of rape culture and wealth-based costumery idealism

www.womensviewsonnews.org/2012/08/lizzie-armitstead-talks-about-overwhelming-sexism-in-cycling/

www.womensviewsonnews.org/2012/08/lizzie-armitstead-talks-about-overwhelming-sexism-in-cycling/

"The ?fashion biz? segment in the Closing Ceremony was an unfathomably regressive bit of choreographed objectification. It felt deliberate, as if designed to rein in any aspiration or hopes that briefly glimpsed light this past month."

This is exactly how I felt about it. It was like "Right, you've had your two weeks of powerful inspiring women with beautiful strong bodies, now back to ultra-skinny sexualised models again". I gave up and turned it off a while after that.

That article is right when it says that it has at least highlighted the disparity between men and women. I think a lot of people have noticed things that aren't as obvious in daily life

It is like banging your head against a brick wall isn't it?

What can we do to pressure the powers that be to increase their coverage of women's sports? Any ideas?

"Right, you've had your two weeks of powerful inspiring women with beautiful strong bodies, now back to ultra-skinny sexualised models again".

Thank fuck I fell asleep before the models arrived - I've seen some photos today. Seems so entirely inappropriate, and I've loved these Olympics (never have i watched so much sport) - bit of a flop ending to then.

For me the proper ending was watching the women's modern pentathlon, and the brilliant Sam Murray saying after winning silver "I'm just a normal person - give sport a go".

Positive - Japanese women's football got upgraded on their flight home. Only cos they won the silver medal, though!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19248413

If it helps a bit re the closing ceremony, the Brazilians with the green lights on their heads were physically fit men in what looked like black speedos, so pretty scanty!

It was the go go dancer in the inflatable octopus (behind Fat Boy Slim) that made me really cross. I assume Jessie J had an input into her own outfit but this just seemed gratuitous.