Chris Evans on 'Girls' Olympic Football

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I listen to his show briefly on my drive to work. This morning he was interviewing a member of the GB Women's football team who are progressing in the Olympics.

He started to talk about 'girls' football.
"Women's football" the player corrected him.
To paraphrase his reply to his clumsy error 'ladies, girls, women's, female whatever, it doesn't really matter'
"It's women's football" she reiterated.

I cheered the player and was thankfully spared from listening to the rest of it (oh cringe) by arriving at work.

FFS Chris get with it - when have you EVER spoken of 'boys' football!!!!

He's a major broadcaster on the BBC and he should know better. I hope he learnt something this morning.

Who cares?

Um ... I don't know quite why this is hard to understand, but she cares. She corrected him.

And (though this is not very important in comparison), obviously we care too.

You don't.

That's lovely.

I'm sure there are loads of things you're passionate about that the GB Women's football team aren't actually very excited about either. Does it matter?

Also it's just inaccurate.. If he had said Children's Olympics (which he basically did) you wouldn't be question why he was wrong.

Female athletes have to fight against sexism everyday. Good for her for not being complacent

Sounds like he didn't handle this very well at all. However, as a regular listener I can tell you that Chris Evans constantly refers to men as 'boys' and women as 'girls'. This terminology is kind of normal for him and he generally discrimates equally...

However, good for the player for pulling him up on it!

I think it only matters if you don't really believe you're equal yourself.

Correct bagelmonkey - feminists recognise that women are not equal to men in our society and believe we should be. If you believe we already have 'enough' equality or are not concerned that we do not, then you would probably not be bothered by things that maintain the status quo.

I do question the helpfulness of calling females aged 15-18 "young women" rather than girls, especially if you would call a male aged 15 a boy. I get the feeling of discord when talking about the sexual and reproductive rights of females that age, but I wonder if calling them 'young women' plays into the notion that females of that age are to be seen as sexually available, rather than recognising the emotional immaturity and vulnerability that is actually commensurate with their age?

Good for the footballer for pulling up Chris Evans.

On FB this morning Chris has congratulated the boys gymnastics team, and pointed out the women's gymnastics final is today.

So it seems from him to be that men's/boys and women's/girls are interchangeable. Not sexism, but when corrected by someone on the team, he should have accepted the official term.

I know I'm equal. I don't need to get my knickers in a twist about the whole girl/woman/lady thing.
If you don't believe yourself that you're equal, and go looking to be discriminated against, of course you will feel like society doesn't treat you equally.

Completely agree with bagel. 'girl' is not an offensive term.

The discussion/ reaction here is way over the top PC.

Oh, come on! It's the name of their team. She had perfect right to correct him. It could have been a very minor point. It is basic courtesy that, when you describe a person to themselves, and they correct you, you assume they just might be right and you correct your mistake!

There is a good, obvious, not especially excitingly feminist reason to feel she was in the right ... and yet you're insisting on not seeing it because you're too busy wailing on noes, the evil evil feminists, getting all upset.

So it seems from him to be that men's/boys and women's/girls are interchangeable. Not sexism, but when corrected by someone on the team, he should have accepted the official term.

When corrected on terminology by someone who knows more about something than you, you should accept it with good grace, not say "whatever".

Absolutely, but in this case it wasn't sexist, just not acceptable to the person being described.

If you listen to Chris a lot you'll know that he is very excitable and totally into the Olympics. He does not have 'form' in dismissing women and their achievements - he is generally very respectful and admiring of everyone - no matter what sex, religion, race.

Buthe is excitable and he is broadcasting live and it is possible he didn't handle this well - it certainly sounds as tho he didn't appreciate the point the athlete was making.

And he does refer to men's teams as boys on a regular basis when he's chatting so it's not as tho he's denigrating women here - its his style. Which 99 % of the time is spot on for me. Give me excitement and enthusiasm for life, and in this case the Olympics, over perfectly scripted, edited, approved copy any day.

The reaction here sounds totally OTT to an off the cuff remark which doesn't reflect the way he usually talks to or about women at all (don't forget his wife is a professional golfer, so he would get it in the neck at home if he really felt what's been attributed to him here)

If he uses 'girls' and 'boys' indiscriminately for 'women' and 'men', then no, it wasn't sexist. It's not too surprising people would wonder, since it is quite common for people to use 'girls' for 'women' when they wouldn't call men 'boys'.

I also think it's interesting that most of the 'anti' bit of this thread has been about insisting Chris Evans has perfect right to do what he likes and say what he likes. I don't get why he should automatically be more important than this woman, who is after all competing in the olypmics?

I would also have thought Evans was rude if he'd got a man's team name wrong, and failed to correct the mistake with courtesy. But I suspect in such a case, debate would have been much more even-handed about whether Evans was being rude or the man was being OTT to correct him. It's interesting that there seems to be no defence of this woman from a POV of good manners, which surely isn't the monopoly of feminists.

light and bagel. Whilst I do agree with you that the term "girls" need not necessarily be derogatory, especially if, as in the case of CE, one also says "boys".

But I think you need to put it into the wider context. Apart from the fact that women are far more likely to be referred to as "girls" than men as "boys", the background is one of women trying to avoid the infantilisation that is widely heaped on us, and the struggle women have had to be seen on equal footing to men, especially in sport, making women more sensitive about the issue.

Also, when corrected, it does seem a tad rude to override the woman's request. I mean surely that woman has a right to determine what she gets to be called.

Just because he didn't mean it in a sexist manner does not mean that it is not in general a sexist thing to say.

An older person saying "coloured", when in their day that was the polite thing to say, should be reminded that it's not the correct thing to say any more, even if they had very good intentions.

So in this case I think:

Chris Evans was not being sexist - he says "boys and girls" equally
The player was right to correct him - she may not know his style and it can be in general a sexist term
He was wrong to say "Whatever" - you should respect people's preferred terminology

That's true, trills, but I think if he calls everyone 'boy' and 'girl' irrespective of age, it genuinely isn't sexist (though it is odd, and you'd think a bit of sensitivity would tell him that sportswomen might be rather keen not to be called 'girl' because it often is done in a sexist way).

So I think messy is right about context ... this may seem trivial to him, but it mattered to the person he was speaking to, and it's basic good manners to accept that.

Cross post!

It's a bit like he's a children's TV presenter isn't it, "come on now boys and girls!"

It is a bit.

But being fundamentally annoying probably isn't good reason to slate him. (Or is it?)

You can slate him in Chat for being annoying, but probably not in the Feminism boards :o

Normally I would let girls for Woman pass over me, but in this case CE was an arse not to take the correction instantly.

I saw the first match and, although I know nothing about football, it looked jolly skill full and grown up to me.

I am a regular listener to Chris Evans and I really like his show in general. I used to watch "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush", "TFIF" etc so I would say I 'get' Chris Evans. Still doesn't mean I don't think what he said yesterday was sexist rather than "Chris being Chris".

What I was commenting on in the OP, isn't the use of the word 'girls' being offensive, but the fact that the person sat in front of him, that he has invited into his show, his GUEST, corrected him when he started blabbing on about girls football (which did get my attention right from the start as he sounded ridiculous - not funny ridiculous, but stupid ridiculous). She said very clearly "It's called Women's football".

He then went into the ladies/girls/women/females/whatever rant instead of (at the very least) being gracious and respectful to his guest, who lets not forget is an Olympic athlete representing GB.

"If you don't believe yourself that you're equal, and go looking to be discriminated against, of course you will feel like society doesn't treat you equally."

Jesus, breadrollgorilla, stop being such a girl.