Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Pointless- a feminist issue?

96 replies

Hakluyt · 08/04/2015 09:46

I am addicted to Pointless- and many other quiz shows. It struck me yesterday that many of the questions seem biased towards traditionally male interests.

Now obviously there are many women who are interested in Champions League Football and Formula 1, but I do think it's safe to assume that it is more likely that men will be able to answer on these and similar topics and they come up a lot.

For the life of me, I can't think of any topics that women would be more likely to answer on- Chick Lit, I suppose? Anything else?

OP posts:
rosy71 · 08/04/2015 21:38

I've never watched Pointless but I've always wondered why sports questions in quizzes are always about football (occasionally cricket or rugby).

When I was at university I queried this whilst playing trivial pursuit. A male replied, "well, football is the national sport." I was amazed; coming from a predominately female family with a father who didn't watch football, that had genuinely never registered with me before!

rosy71 · 08/04/2015 21:41

Meant to add, that was one of the first times I realised that men's experiences can be quite different from women's but they are taken to represent the normal. I can remember being totally taken by surprise many times at that age by things men took to be normal that had never occurred to me or I hadn't experienced.

iklboo · 08/04/2015 21:42

We got

Words ending in 'rain'
Woodwind instruments
Fictional TV workplaces
Songs by The Jam
Oceans
Rovers Return landlords

And Stevie Wonder Top 40 singles in the final.

Definitely more of a 'general knowledge' split.

thatstoast · 08/04/2015 21:48

My female experience of football is that it's boring. Rugby and Tennis all the way. I do remember that I worked for a company that was planning on giving time off to football fans to watch the world cup. 2006, I think it was. I had to object to the unfairness of it and 'ruined it for everyone".

So we had Chefs, music, the number 50 & fictional captains on pointless today. How do we think that fares with regards to gender bias? Pretty good I think.

iklboo · 08/04/2015 21:49

What are 'women's interests' though? Genuine question, not goady. It may be pretty hard to define - I don't like a huge amount of stuff allegedly aimed at women.

thatstoast · 08/04/2015 21:51

Were you on pointless, iklboo? I've auditioned twice and been in the audience. Did you win? I'm sure there's a mumsnetter who's won.

IKnowIAmButWhatAreYou · 09/04/2015 08:28

I'll have to watch it a bit more closely, but I was under the impression that the "Sporty" questions tend to come up in the final round where you get a choice of which subjects to answer.

And I've definitely seen Tennis questions come up a couple of times.

I found Jackies list of questions more offensive than the issue raised in the OP TBH - as if the sum of being a woman is knowledge about children and shopping!!

Original poster
Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 08:35

The chefs were 50:50- I counted! The number 50 was neutral, but the captains were all men.

OP posts:
thatstoast · 09/04/2015 08:50

But although the captains were all men, the topics featured yesterday didn't lean heavily towards men's interests. At least, I don't think. DH told me about a 'feminist life hack', if someone mentions a captain from star trek you assume they mean Janeway unless told otherwise. At the moment she's the only female fictional captain I can think of.

Can we examine a bit more male vs female questions? We seem to agree that sport, especially football, is male. It seems to be harder to state a female category without diminishing women? I suppose Chefs could lean towards a female category due to women being responsible for the majority of domestic tasks.

HmmAnOxfordComma · 09/04/2015 09:38

A couple of us have said literature incl prize winners as being a woman's topic...i don't think that diminishes women, does it?

Tbh, among the educated, knowledgeable, bookish people I know (which is most of the people I know!) there isn't really a gender divide over areas of knowledge. In a quiz team I'm loosely in, two women know cricket and F1, a bloke and a woman know tennis, none of us kknow football at all, we all know book, the women are more sciency, the men knknow more history and art, the women are better on older music, none of us know contemporary music, the men are better on film.

I personally think this is a divide among class and gender lines.

Amongst less educated/ tabloid reading people , I have a hunch that men have better traditional general knowledge on the whole (geog, hist, science) than women...as well as sports type stuff.

HmmAnOxfordComma · 09/04/2015 09:40

"this" being tv quiz show standard of general knowledge...

thatstoast · 09/04/2015 10:55

But why is literature a female category? Do women read more than men? Is it because reading is a quiet hobby and something to be done in the home? I'm just trying to unpick what's behind the assumptions.

I agree that class is important too. I'm sure a lot of my working class friends would say they don't have enough time to read, and not enough money to go to the theatre.

StillLostAtTheStation · 09/04/2015 13:43

Literature isn't a female category. Neither is history, geography, science or politics. Nor is sport.

thatstoast · 09/04/2015 13:53

So what is a female category? Or if you don't believe there are female categories, why do you think other people see gender in these categories?

StillLostAtTheStation · 09/04/2015 14:05

I don't believe there is a female category of knowledge. The fact other people may do is their problem.

Original poster
Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 14:11

This is fascinating. Last week the the category in the final was Blackpool. One was teams Blackpool FC had beaten, another was people who had been in the Blackpool editions of Strictly. So a traditionally male and female topic.

But it struck me that generally a contestant would be proud of, and get credit, for knowing a pointless football team, but be embarrassed, and thought rather trivial for knowing a pointless celebrity.

OP posts:
Preminstreltension · 09/04/2015 14:22

I agree with this generally. You never see general knowledge questions about sewing or knitting for example. Not that women are interested in those things necessarily but "name a sort of stitch" or "name a British clothing designer at this year's British Fashion week" would never, ever be asked on this kind of show. But name a darts player - yes.

Interestingly though you also very rarely see questions about economics which is a subject I know a bit about and is sort of male-ish so it's not necessarily only about gender but also about acceptable topics for trivia discussion.

ICantFindAFreeNickName · 09/04/2015 14:32

I'm sorry, I'm not normally one to complain about this sort of thing, but I think saying certain categories are 'male' is really unacceptable. Is this the sort of message you are passing onto your children?
My Mum & sisters know far more about sport (& especially football) than my partner or son. When I have been in pub quiz teams, it has been a real mixture of knowledge between the sexes.

Original poster
Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 14:35

"I'm sorry, I'm not normally one to complain about this sort of thing, but I think saying certain categories are 'male' is really unacceptable. Is this the sort of message you are passing onto your children?"

Just checking before I reply- have you read the thread?

OP posts:
ThinkIveBeenHacked · 09/04/2015 14:38

But OP it is you who is subscribing the male/female assumption against such topics as motorsports/football/literature.

There are many male constants on Pointless who fail to score well on sport rounds and women who do the opposite.

Original poster
Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 14:46

Are you saying that interest in and knowledge about football is completely gender balanced? 6 random women, 6 random men- equal ability or lack of ability to answer questions on F1?

OP posts:
Original poster
Hakluyt · 09/04/2015 14:47

I didn't mention literature, by the way.

OP posts:
ApocalypseNowt · 09/04/2015 14:58

Preminstrel I'd disagree with that with regards to pointless. I distinctly remember a photo round about types of sleeve and there was a missing letters round about types of fabric.

I think Pointless is actually one of the best there is for male/female contestant ratios, massive scope on general knowledge topics and as a pp mentioned they are very good iro disabilities.

Other quizzes yet but no, not pointless!

Preminstreltension · 09/04/2015 15:01

oh that is interesting. I would be good on types of sleeve Grin

ApocalypseNowt · 09/04/2015 15:07

I think i got raglan but was pretty shit otherwise!

I think discussing gender in relation to quiz shows (ones involving the general public as opposed to hignfy, etc) is a really interesting question...I just felt the need to defend Pointless as it's one of my favourite things!