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?

Rugby isn't currently played at the Olympics - but they are bringing rugby back to the Olympics in 2016 in the form of a Rugby 7's tournament for both men and women.

I have no idea what's the hammer and what's the nail.

You're implying I have some kind of odd feminist agenda because I point out women's football has less financing and status than men's?

You and your odd feminist agenda, eh, LRD?

These things are very circular - if women's football got more attention, funding and coverage then more people would watch it.

Still totally baffled by why we can't have a GB women's football team for the relevant tournaments. If it's hard for the England women's football team to get attention then what must it be like for the Northern Irish one?

I'm Scottish and hate the stance we have over team GB.
Anyway, the girls are leading the way when it comes to medals..!

I know, mooncup. You'd think at least if you and I wanted to talk about woman-y things, we'd have the decency to do it in some special section, or to put some kind of clue in our posting names, or something.

Geek, it is a pity because it would be a great opportunity for some players, and while I understand the SFA under normal circumstances, I think they are being a wee bit paranoid here.

And I did request special dispensation to discuss woman-y sport, which MN Towers graciously granted. The hammer-and-nail thing is a common enough phrase. It refers to those with a narrow perspective, and who only have one argument, and therefore everything has a single cause, regardless of the complexity of the situation. It's a pity, because I love sport and love the opportunity to discuss it.

namechange - I know that's what they said. BUT the women's teams were willing to field one united team GB & NI. As the men had done previously. Why the male FA get to dictate to the women's team what they are or aren't allowed to do is bizarre.

They just weren't allowed to. A male FA stopped them, even though the women were already playing as a united UK team and had qulaified.

The male FA can argue all they want about whether to have a UK team or separate nations etc, but they don't have the right to bring that argument to a successful squad who have qualified. The women were denied the right to make their own decisions about their own sports.

Why couldn't the women's FA dictate to the men's that they should agree to a united team for the Olympics? Why was it the men who got to over-rule the decision of the IOC and the women's FA?

It is irrelevant what arguments were taking place within the men's sport at the time - the women had established a successful united team that had qualified. The men didn't need to even comment on it, let alone wade in and stop them taking part.

"These things are very circular - if women's football got more attention, funding and coverage then more people would watch it. "

I think you've hit the nail on the head Mooncup. Before the Olympics I didn't watch women's football because it's not easily accessible. I don't have Sky and I don't have much money to go to matches, hell I don't even know where the matches are. But now it's right there, being brought to my telly every day I am loving it. I'm sure there are lots of men who would never have gotten into football if it wasn't just a few remote control buttons away.

What I don't understand about market fundamentalists with their "oh well if more people were interested in WF then the market would respond" is that such thinking doesn't get applied to other things. Advertising companies aren't just about responding to demand but they also try to create demand for their new products. Look at the Paralympics. I'm sure the powerful advertising that has appeared over the last weeks has really drummed up the desire to watch it. Yet when it's about women's sport there seems to be a lot of "oh well its all about the market".

Still, I'm really happy about the interest that has been shown in this Olympics and hope that the "market" responds. I'm also really happy about this awesome response given by weightlifter Zoe Smith to those twitter idiots who bodysnarked her for appearing "unfeminine"(yawn... not again!)

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

plus - women have been allowed to play soccer! yay!
plus - they won a gold! bigger yay!

minus - for some reason we're discussing the men's FA's past decisions - boo. From now on I shall ignore any more of their politics as it's not relevant to this thread.

Once again, I'm just not getting it.

You think it's 'narrow' to observe that women footballers don't get the status and recognition male players do, and say this might in some way be related to their sex?

How could it possibly not be related to their sex?

No one, I think, would deny that there are all sorts of complex interactions between sex and culture, sex and access to wealth, etc. etc. - but why is it so wrong to observe that women footballers have a different situation than the men?

I would say, if anything, this is a very broad view - I'm not getting into the nitty-gritty of it, just making the obvious point.

kick you are right. Let's get back to the tally..

I have a minus: my arse is getting sores because I have been stuck on the sofa glued to the telly for the last few days, and I have washing up in the sink that is beginning to stink..... I had to order pizza last night coz I didn't want to leave the house to do some shopping.

Thanks messy, what a great response from Zoe Smith.

Kickass, you are right, because there is only one FA per country. If there was a women's SFA, you might have got women to take part in the GB team. It's a shame for them, but being dominated by men, I guess there is only going to be one outcome. Plus, I wonder if Mr Salmond and the upcoming referendum might have something to do with the decision!

I have thought over some of my contributions here, and I think I have taken the wrong tack. If people want to just post stuff and enjoy the moment without riposte/debate, I will tone it down.

For those who want to enjoy women's football in the longer term, here are some good sources for the new Summer League (WSL);

www.thefa.com/womens/ and www.fawsl.com/index.html

As an example, my club, Liverpool, have a women's team. Costs are very reasonable - for their next game, it is 4.50 pounds for adults and free for under 16's. Compare that with the Premier League, where match-day tickets are over 40 quid per game!

Thank you for the links namechange.

Just to add a huge hooray for Heather and Helen for the rowing and Bradley for his cycling.
Ok Bradley's medal tally is good but pales in comparison to Tanni-Grey Thompson's 16 Olympic medals, including 11 Golds! No wonder they made her a Baroness!

Aw thanks namechangeguy

Thanks, namechange, it takes a lot to back down, good on you.

I think I started out thinking this would be a thread balanced fairly evenly between positive and negative, but it seems to have turned into more of a celebration. It's lovely.

Just want to clarify some ignorance on this thread. The reason Team GB doesn't exist is nothing to do with female football. This is misinformed clearly agenda driven drivel.

The men's team also qualified for Beijing 2008 by virtue of qualification through the Under 21 tournament they took part in, but also were not allowed to play due to the concerns bought up by the FA's. Clearly it has nothing to do with banning the

Whoever mentioned that the Olympics is the pinnacle of womens football, wrong again, please if you're going to comment on the subject, at least have some knowledge on it. Whilst it holds slightly more weight than the men's tournament (as the men's tournament is a partially under age tournament), the world cup is the pinnacle of women's international football, as it is with the men's team.

Again suggesting that the women team are being forced into doing the men's wishes. There is no male or female FIFA, it's just one organisation for both games, hence the reasons the other home nations have of not wanting to have a joint team stand for BOTH games. The women's team currently only has one player from outside of Britain in their team (it was 2 out of the 18 but the other one got injured) so its really much to do with the fact that the other home nations think they won't be represented, as a GB team is naturally going to be English based (as much for population as anything).

Now I personally think this is overly precious from the other home nations and there really is not much problem with a GB team for the Olympics, indeed its been quite nice for both the men and womens team.

But to suggest that its a gender issue is just so off the mark and wrong I had to do this post.

*banning the women's game.

positive:

the fact that for once, magazines and newspapers are full of pictures of healthy athletic women's bodies rather than underweight models and actresses.

negative:

the fact that every interview with or article about a female athlete seems to include some comment about her dress style/makeup/grooming regime (and the same does not apply to men).

Although of course these are pros and cons to journalism^ about the Olympics rather than the Olympics themselves.

Just for you, mini. Obviously it's pre-olympics but I loved it:

swegener.tumblr.com/post/28231846557/slumberblues-batchix-rinacat

Oh, I like it . Next step is to throw in a few lines about Christian Bale's favourite skincare products.

Thanks for your helpful contribution Sideshow - how grateful I am that you've addressed my ignorance and shown me my 'agenda-driven drivel' for what it is .

I think I mentioned in my last post that both men and women were missing out through not being able to field a Team GB. I didn't say that the women were 'banned' - I said that the rules prevented them. I think that this is more unfair on the women than the men, because the Olympic competition is the highest profile women's football competition - the WC might be officially more important, but it gets considerably less attention worldwide.

I see that you agree with me that there's little justification for not fielding a Team GB at every Olympics - or even every international football tournament.

I'm not sure what point you're making in your fourth paragraph so I can't address it.

It's a gender issue because women are prevented from reaching the pinnacle of international achievement through the existence of this rule. But the rule isn't being changed because it doesn't affect the men's team in the same way - if it did, it would be. As it is, there's no reason to tackle the vested interests of the separate FAs.

I don't think bob knows what he's talking about any more than the people he's accusing of ignorance, TBH, don't let it get to you treats>