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.

Helxi - am sorry for you that your post is so full of anger and angst. For me, I am not in your narrow demograph of Islington, average male, tortured, lefty, guilt-ridden etc ad nauseum.
I see stupid, lazy sexism from a 'national' icon and am quite happy to help point it out. It's a shame you are so virulently defensive of such crassness.

I am definitely not middle class but I do have an interest in the nature of language/ rhetoric etc. Anyone who thinks that language is nothing to get your knickers in a twist over has clearly not realized the huge power of language to be persuasive (ask advertisers why they spend fortunes researching the exact word to use in their advertisements etc) In the past, people thought that it was very boring and middle class of loony lefties to get their knickers in a twist over certain words that really didn't matter (eg handicapped, coloured, dusky, gay as an offensive term meaning weak and useless, rag-heads, chavs etc etc) yet, once the change has been made and generally accepted, we can clearly look back and see how offensive the old term was and how the negativity it often implied did have an effect on how the thing it was describing was viewed.

rosa - I agree! It's true.

And anyone who doesn't realize that language is used in a context, and only has meaning in that context, is being naive. There is a difference between a man being called a 'boy', in a context where his sport is excellently funded and prestigious and he knows it, and a woman being called a 'girl', in a context where lots of female athletes are being called 'girl' and in which they are typically less well funded and less well thought of (cf. the idiot judo article in the telegraph).

SGM - talking penises might be quite cute, no?

If you had listened to the whole interview you would have gone on to hear the footballer constantly refer to her team mates as 'girls'. Christ Evans sounded surprised at the end and commented that she had pulled him up on it but used the terminology herself.

I don't think he is sexist. He generally seems to have a huge amount of respect for women.

Evans definitely does have form. Back in his 'lads mag' heyday I used to listen to his radio show. He patronised the shit out of all the female newsreaders.

On one occasion he went on at some length about how one of his female colleagues was 'too nice' to be a real financial correspondent after she interviewed the chancellor on budget day. He spoke to her as if she was an adorable two year old dressing up as an adult.

No doubt it was meant to be funny but even in my bleary eyed 90's stupor I was roused to rage by it.

What ... so he actually had a go at her?

That actually seems really nasty. I was thinking he was just floundering, but you're saying he made the mistake - refused to correct it - and when she went with what he was saying, he then pulled her up on it?

Sorry, but what a tosser. There was no need to do that.

Or are you suggesting she really should have kept on saying 'women' and gone through the same tedious process with him every time she opened her mouth?

Big difference between calling your team mates boys or girls, and referring to the sport as girls or boys football.

I call myself a girl, I'm 41. But if I was referred to as a girl in a professional context I'd feel pretty patronised.

I dunno, I think it might be uncomfortable to have your team mate call you a 'girl'. But I think if that were me, and I'd just corrected someone and they'd replied like he did, I would probably not be up for pushing the point. She has other things to put her energy into.

I don't know enough about football to get it, I think. But I think I do still have reservations about her saying 'girls'. I don't want to have a go at her though - I think 1) she's talking about her team, which is different from Evans attributing a word to the whole sport and 2) if that'd been me, I would have been wrongfooted by his response and I would not push it.

A commentater with the national Irish broadcaster, George Hamilton referred to the women in the cycling road race as 'girls' several times throughout the race. I was attempting to explain to DH why this was, in my view wrong, but this thread has helped me to put it into word, thank you:)

This s quite shocking to me. Never once have I heard our commentators say 'girls soccer, girl rowing' etc etc. It doesn't roll off the tongue at all.

I'm shocked he then went her after the interview. So he clearly had a tantrum she dared to correct him, sat on it the whole interview then said 'HA! You said it too!'

Wow. Nope, not sexist at all. Not childish at all.

It's interesting - bits of my family don't speak English as a first language, and they speak languages where masculine and feminine are part of the grammar, so you don't need to specify that it's the women's comeptitor in this or the men's player that, it's inherent in the language. They commented on the fact it sounded as if the commnentators were talking about children's sport when they said 'girls', too.

I don't think it was a feminist-y observation, but I guess it brought home to me how we're very used to 'girls', but it is a little strange really. Like, you wouldn't see them saying 'and now we have the babes' football'!

I thought she was right to correct him but felt uncomfortable when she then used the same term. I'm not sure why.

His response of surprise left me feeling that actually he has taken her initial comments in board and was therefore left wondering about her using 'girls' after correcting him.

That's a more charitable way to see it than I had!

I'm not sure what I think to her using the term ... also slightly unsure but I don't want to judge her given what else she was contending with.

Hmmm.. have been thinking about this and I reckon it's all about familiarity.

Mmm, I think more and more I disagree.

I don't especially like that she said it.

I think there are other ways to be informal.

(Bed? Hope you're on a different time zone, and not ill?)

No, thanks LRD I'm not ill. I was just trying to catch some sleep back after being woken up by noisy neighbours at 5am! Is impossible to get back to sleep though, especially when Olympics is on.

DS and I are going out to be with the 3-dimensional people at some point today though

Glad to hear you're well, if sleepy.