Clare Balding throws women under the bus

[MrsSnippyPants]

Interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio from 9.35 am this morning. (Available on the Talk Radio app via 'schedule' then listen again).

The words Clare used were that the issue was being presented as 'dramatic' and 'overhyped' .

Julie brought up the Kent cricketer, Clare brought up Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps having bigger feet, a bigger wingspan and being taller, and that women were not the people who should be talking about it!!

Not enough eye rolls in the world.
Not en

Hopefully someone will produce a direct link at some point today.

Oh that is so disappointing. I expected better of her. I suppose she's frightened of losing her job with the BBC.

I didn't expect better of Clare Balding to be honest. She has always struck me as someone who got her position through connections rather than merit while other more knowledgeable women were overlooked. She may know about horse racing (I don't so can't really comment) but is hopeless on athletics and tennis which I do follow. Cringingly so at times.

Oh FFS Clare!!! Isn’t she married to a woman? So an actual, real life lesbian just casually not giving a shit about other women and girls because she’s alright Jack? Is she friends with Ruth Hunt?

Clare Balding has quit the BBC. She freelances for the Beeb, C4 and BT.

So some men are bigger and stronger than that trans cricketer?
Is that her point?

So what?

And what if any of those bigger men decide to be trans?

It makes me SO angry when lesbians chuck other lesbians under the bus. It really is the most selfish thing, especially the ones who are happily ensconced in LTR or married to women. They’re not having to navigate a world of dating where they’re pressured into accepting dick from men who have seen a convenient way to let their rapey tendencies to the fore. They’re not being called TERFs and threatened are they. And as for Clare just casually showing us how few fucks she gives about women’s sports

I wouldn’t expect anything less. She has a career to protect.

Disappointing, but I guess pretty unsurprising. Clare Balding doesn't strike me as having a very incisive mind or being much of a critical thinker.

I suppose for her it was a straightforward cost/benefit exercise. Protected as she is by wealth and status, she stands to lose more (her lucrative media work) by expressing GC views than she would personally gain by standing up for women's rights and protecting same sex spaces.

I'm all the more grateful to those who are in similar positions but still put less privileged women's best interests ahead of their own.

Can't comment on the programme as I don't have access to it, but wanted to say, yes she is well connected but I know the horse racing world - it is is patriarchal in the extreme - and is only just starting to change now wrt attitudes and opportunities to female jockeys and trainers. Believe me, Clare will have faced misogyny and prejudice coming out in that environment. It's bad enough for straight women.

I wouldn’t expect anything less. She has a career to protect

I actually think she’s one of the few who might get away with at least dipping a toe. She’s a well-liked, well-respected sports commentator who is married to a woman. She could absolutely come out and say something along the lines of hmmmm maybe we should look more at this. She’d not have been hauled over the coals by JHB certainly so a really good opportunity to put across a few calm, well-researched points. Just blindly following the woke party line does nothing apart from help send women’s sports down the swanny.

attitudes to and opportunities for!

She once made fun of a jockeys teeth live on air, I've not liked her since.

Well, it's disappointing, but I don't really expect a BBC person, with her background, conservative with a big and small C to say anything against the pervading mantra, or what she is told to say about trans sports people, even if she is a lesbian.

Lesbians and gay men are not necessarily lefty liberals and gender critical.

Interviewers need to start following up this stupid response with "so you disagree with having separate sports categories for men and women?"

Then let them explain that.

Because you cannot argue for males to play in the women's category and simultaneously justify there being a women's category.

Either the category exists because males have an advantage. Or males have no advantage and everyone should compete together.

We need to stop letting public people dance around this; nail your flag to the mast.

Because you cannot argue for males to play in the women's category and simultaneously justify there being a women's category.

Exactly. It's so obviously nonsensical.

It’s a shame Clare doesn’t realise there would be a LOT of support for her, if she was honest and said of course it’s not fair that men compete in the womens category.

@shearwater

i don't know who she is but surprised about she's conservative and same time on pro trans position in sports.

I’m pretty sure that a change of tack for her....

Disappointed but not surprised. She has a career to protect - look at the vitriol, threats and hatred that a black lesbian lawyer got for daring to challenge homophobia and the removal of rights for women. The pile on that CB would get if she dared to put her head above the parapet would be horrific - going along with the gaslighting and lies is the only way many women are coping.
These are exceptionally dangerous times for women - including those in the public eye.

She has always struck me as someone who got her position through connections rather than merit while other more knowledgeable women were overlooked. She may know about horse racing (I don't so can't really comment)

Are you kidding me?? She is incredibly knowledgeable on all the equestrian disciplines! She is a fantastic and interesting to listen to equestrian commentator. I didn't know she commentated on other sports but I can assure you she has more than earned her position commentating on horse sport!

She's always played her sexuality very low key (as is her right) - but yes I'm gutted to hear her not defend women in sport.

"Julie brought up the Kent cricketer, Clare brought up Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps having bigger feet, a bigger wingspan and being taller, and that women were not the people who should be talking about it!!"

Any chance that she meant that men should be objecting to the unfairness as they know the physical advantages they have over women? Just a hope...

Clare brought up Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps having bigger feet, a bigger wingspan and being taller

What has that got to do with anything? If you compete in a sport segregated by sex, you should play on whichever side matches your biological sex. AFAIK, swimming isn't further divided by weight or height so the comment is completely irrelevant.

Is she maybe minimising the impact of males in women's sport because her specific area of expertise is one of the few which can be genuinely mixed sex?

“Women were not the people who should be talking about it”??? Erm who SHOULD talk about it then