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?

ah that is great re your friends DD LRD - I really enjoyed the women's cycle yesterday. They had such dreadful conditions to race it, and it looked really treacherous. The race went down the bottom of our road & I am hugely impressed that anyone can get from Richmond Park to the Mall in 10ish minutes (on any vehicle). I can get from one end of the road to the other in that time!

Lizzie Armistead is my hero today!

ok - name change, in this instance the marathon is being treated differently, but in almost all cases my point was accurate, but I should have double checked that it applies to this Olympics. The fact that women weren't even allowed to run the Marathon until the 1980s shows how much they have been kept out of sport for this event.

please read my comment about use of the words accommodations.

we listed the SA women as a POSITIVE - a hurrah, not a whine. Yes, it's a shame that the IOC had to force the SA to accept women, and I actually wonder why SA bothered. Why not just say 'OK, we'll stay home'? But it has happened and we are pretty pleased it has.

I'm also glad to see that the OC included a broad range of people - male, female, young, old, popular culture, techy stuff, disabled, able etc etc.

Sports coverage really highlights areas of bias (e.g. the US shows the US teams most.) so it's a good way to look at the things that are seen as important etc.

Yes, it looked an amazing race!

(And thanks ... it is great and IMO it's why it matters so much to think not just about the individuals competing but also about how much they're influencing people ... they are role models and there are some really impressive ones.)

Namechangeguy, in the thread about the wpmen's football, the OP didn't realise that this was standard for the Olympics and applied to men too. Once she did, she changed her position. This happened about 6 posts in, I think.

If she had been correct in her initial assumption that all events except women's football happened after the official start, it would have been worthy of comment.

Not a whinge, just an error.

I'd like to add Rebecca Adlington as a great thing about this Games and every time I see her. She's just so HAPPY to be there, it is lovely.

On a positive note, Gemma Spofforth deserves a medal in the 100m backstroke, after the awful couple of years she has endured. Gold will be tough, but I hope she gets on the podium.

Gender disparity in events

Someone up thread asked about the difference in men's and women's events.

From the above link "Examples of event inequality exist in Athletics, Canoeing, Rowing, Wrestling, Shooting, and Boxing. Additional events for men are in some cases more demanding that the event offerings for women (for example 50 km walk or the Decathlon)." They have also missed swimming where men do 1500m and women 800m.

Googled netball last night. Apparantly, it's only played in Commonwealth countries so isn't widely enough played for the Olympics. Like cricket, I suppose. Netball is played in the Commonwealth Games.

Makes sense I guess. Rugby is played in the Commonwealth + Italy, France and Argentina which probably swung it.

How many countries play beach volleyball then?

I don't follow why men couldn't do synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics, really? That seems a bit shit.

Btw ... it is possible I'm banging on, or just more naive than you lot, but I've been reading up on the Saudi Arabian women, and there was a quotation in CiF that put it in a really funny way:

'It's common knowledge that Saudi women are not allowed to pursue higher education, have major surgery or leave the country without their male guardian's written approval. So it's hard not to see a gleeful irony in the fact that the International Olympic Committee has turned the tables by stipulating that Saudi men can only participate if accompanied by Saudi women.'

I hadn't thought of the Saudi women accompanying the men and thus making it possible for them to attend - but it's true!

Back to another of your points namechange - If Paul McCartney had said "men first, now women" or "boys first, then girls" then I don't think there would be any issue. Wouldn't you find it odd if Chris Evans started talking about "boys' football" like he did about "girls' football" to a player (see other thread)? That's how I feel about Macca. It's unconscious sexism, but it is sexism.

Also - the thread title is positives and negatives of the Olympics, not of LOCOG.

Ooh that is cool about the Saudi women, LRD!

I did love it! Just the way it was put, made me smile.

IOC members list. count the number of women

Does anyone know off hand if I'm right in assuming the oldest competitor is a woman? Mary King (51?)

51 is not the oldest by a long way, if this is to be believed.

Mary King is the oldest female competitor in team GB. That implies there is a male competitor who is older.

Has Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi been mentioned yet? 8 months PG and a shooter for Malaysia. This is a lovely and positive story. She is flying home today

Men's rhythmic gymnastics does exist, but isn't practised in enough countries yet. It seems to be quite popular in Japan.

Apparently the same argument applies for women's ski jumping in the Winter Olympics.

This one is partly a question ... but I've just seen that the South Korean fencer, Shin Lam, lost her match in a very complicated situation with clocks being reset and lots of time taken to determine what was going on. She stayed on the fighting ground while everything was being decided, and she was in tears for a very long time, then went to fight her next match after they decided the result.

On the Guardian and some other sites, this is being described as a 'protest' she made by sitting and crying for nearly an hour.

But, as I understand it, she had to stay sitting there - she's not actually meant to leave the area. So she wasn't insisting on sitting in full view crying to make a protest.

I don't really know yet, and I'm not sure this would be deliberate sexism, but it is at least unfortunate that the papers are reporting this as a 'protest' when it seems to be no such thing.

Yuk, there are some hideous comments underneath that Daily Mail article.

Oh, wow, they are aren't they?

What kind of idiot thinks, hmm, this woman is an olympic athelete and very good ... oh, I bet she's just gagging to come to a foreign country where racists like me live, oh yes!

Honestly.

I refuse to read the Daily Mail.

Just read some of the things about Shin A Lam. It seems that very few people know how judging is done for the fencing, and the news reports aren't very clear about it, so hard to tell whether there really has been a major mistake at all, but Shin A Lam did have to remain there as walking off would have been an offical acceptance of defeat.

It must be awful to train for so long, then lose at the last second like that. No amount of knowing that you may not win can make you feel any better.

Am completely loving the women's volleyball. In fact I'm really enjoying all the coverage and support of women's sports. It's making me feel so . It must be what men feel like all the time.