Female Olympians still sit at the back of the (Air)bus

The 2012 London Olympics will be the first time in history that women have been allowed to compete in every sport at the Games. Despite this milestone, all is not equal on a modern female Olympian’s trip to London.

If a female athlete overcomes all the inequalities in funding, resources, media and coaching and qualifies for the games, she will be lucky to get a seat on the flight to London which is as good as the men’s. This week, Fairfax reporter Sam Lane broke a story criticising decisions that forced the Australian women’s basketball team to fly economy to London while their male counterparts flew business class. Even though the women’s team is ranked higher than the men’s.

Fairfax printing an article calling out anyone on sexism in sport is a little like Ricky Nixon giving Grant Hackett relationship advice. Fairfax’s unequal reporting of men’s and women’s sport is undeniably sexist and causes far more problems for women sports people across Australia than the Olympics flights incident. Nevertheless it is good that Lane broke this story and that commentators around the country are finally criticising one aspect of sexism in sport.

Basketball Australia quickly pointed out that the women’s basketball team has received more funding than the men in some Olympic years but nevertheless has ordered a review of its policies and seems genuinely keen to ensure that male and female Olympic teams are treated equitably.

But arriving in London female athletes are expected to take another back seat – in the Opening Ceremony behind a man carrying the Olympic flag. This has been the case in 18 of the last 21 Olympics but some athletes are calling for the ratio to be evened up. Natalie Cook, gold medallist and five-time Olympian announced in an interview about the Olympics this week that it was about time for a woman to carry the flag. The misogynists could control themselves no longer. Cook has been called a “whinger” by sports writer Todd Balym and according to Lindsay Gaze, father of former flag-bearer Andrew Gaze, Cook should definitely not be allowed to carry the flag now that she has spoken out. He told the Herald Sun, “I don't think her characteristics or qualities are typical with those of the past.” Apparently pointing out sexism is not an Olympic quality. Father of the modern Olympics and critic of female participation in sport, Pierre de Coubertin, must be looking up from his grave and nodding with approval at Gaze’s comments.

The flag-bearing role in the opening ceremony is usually given to one of the athletes who has competed in the most Olympics. This has been used as a merit-based argument for giving the flag to another male athlete this year. Given that female athletes are often at child-bearing age, their Olympics careers have a tendency to be derailed. This, plus the many other barriers facing female athletes should mean that longevity in the Olympic team is not the only factor in the decision as to who carries the flag. There are many women who deserve to walk out the front of a group of super fit people carrying a symbol of colonisation and Aboriginal repression as much as the men.

No doubt that once the female athletes start competing they will be faced with a barrage of comments about their “hotness”, and be derogatorily called “girls” as opposed to “women”. Just another Olympics in the life of a female athlete.

Let the games begin.

First posted on the Socialist Alternative website.

Putting the layers on lingerie football

Australia has its first lingerie football star, Chloe Butler. For the former AIS runner it’s cause for celebration. She plays tackle football in front of stadiums full of fans – something which young girls in Townsville where she grew up could only dream of while watching Jonathan Thurston or Matt Bowen rip up the field for the Cowboys. And she gets more endorsements than she did playing for the ACT Brumbies during the Australian rugby season.

However, there is one catch. As the name of the league suggests, Butler is forced to play tackle gridiron in her underwear to be subjected to sexist leering no matter how hard she runs, catches or tackles her heart out for her team, the Los Angeles Temptation.

When the Lingerie Football League was established by Mitch Mortaza in 2009, it was not part of some patriarchal crusade to oppress women.

Here is Mortaza’s account of how he dreamed up the Lingerie Bowl and then the Lingerie League after watching an NFL match,
“Even though there were great musical performances at halftime, there seemed to be a mass exodus of people at halftime leaving their very expensive seats within the stadium…Obviously, those people were also leaving their TV sets. Now how can we capture this audience that is leaving their TV sets on television’s biggest viewing day? That is how the Lingerie Bowl was born. Because of the viewership and commercial success of the previous Lingerie Bowls, we thought we should consider launching more of a year-round model”.

Mortaza believed that there were opportunities to make money out of advertising if he could get more people to watch the half time entertainment at the Super Bowl and that was how lingerie sports came about.

When the world is organised in a way where money and profit matters most, it makes sense that a small few make money while larger sections of people in society end up being collateral. Like Jessica Hopkins, a Lingerie Football League player for Seattle who has publicly expressed her feelings about having to wear her underwear to play football, “It’s not fair but we all know sex sells, I'd much prefer to have my skin covered when playing tackle football on hard astro turf, but the lingerie/sexy aspect of our game is what gets people interested.”

Ok, but gets who interested in what? In a study at the University of Minnesota, researchers found that the core fan base of women’s sports – women and older men are offended by hypersexualised images of female athletes and although younger men in the study saw the images as “hot” their interest in women’s sport didn’t increase. The researchers argue that all that sex sells is sex, not women’s sport. Mary Jo Kane who was involved in the study argues that this “sex sells” approach, “reassures (especially male) fans, corporate sponsors and TV audiences that females can engage in highly competitive sports while retaining a nonthreatening femininity”.

Of course sexism is rife in sporting circles around the world, and lingerie football is just the latest in a long line of barriers women face in a quest to be recognized for their talents. In Australia just 4% of TV sport broadcasting is dedicated to women; the average income for a professional netballer is $5000 compared with $180 000 for AFL players and this is for two sports which both have roughly the same number of participants in Australia – around half a million.

The segregation of males and females in pretty much every sport highlights difference between the genders and helps shape gender stereotypes – that men are strong, violent and physically superior and should be appreciated for their skill level, whereas women are fragile and meek and consequently female athletes can only be appreciated for their sex appeal.

As children we learn that girls who play a variety of sports well are “tomboys” - that this is abnormal and instead, girls should aspire to be feminine and that means playing a girl’s sport like netball or Barbies or netball.

On the other hand, to be masculine is to be sporty and males who don’t conform to this stereotype, who are not good at sports are labelled as, you guessed it, girls.

Netball Australia’s recent media campaign released for the World Championships was called “Facets of a Gem” and featured pictures of the players glammed up and text which said, “Off the court, they're full-time students, professionals, entrepreneurs, daughters, friends, wives and girlfriends". Picture an ad for the AFL featuring Barry Hall in a tuxedo with the words, “off the field he’s a boyfriend, an uncle, a son, a friend and he loves gardening” and you see gender stereotypes being reinforced in Netball Australia’s campaign.

We’re bombarded with sexist messages like this from a very young age, leading us to believe that women’s inferiority is natural. Rarely do we hear about the evidence showing that in endurance sports, women can outperform men.

Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano have recently published a book titled "Playing with the Boys”. In it they argue that gender separation in sports will never provide equality for women. To bolster their argument they list countless examples of women competing with men and outperforming them. Annika Sorenstam competed in a PGA Tour event in 2003 and outperformed dozens of the male pro-golfers in the tournament. The authors of the book argue that women’s greater percentage of body fat can be an advantage in extreme temperatures. They also point to a 1996 study which showed that equally trained males and females performed identically over a 42 kilometre run but women outperformed men over 90 kilometres.

Generally scientists point to testosterone to explain the superiority of males’ physical performances, but some do admit that the largest influence on the differences between men’s and women’s sporting abilities are still societal. Studies show that girls are coached differently – corrected less and overlooked as children, not to mention the lower participation rates due to pressures on women to conform to the aforementioned stereotypes.

Between football cheerleaders, strippers at AFL club parties and the abnormally high numbers of sexual assault allegations against football players, you could safely claim that the sports domain is one of the most sexist sections of society today. It reflects the sexism in broader society on the one hand and on the other hand sport actually helps shape sexist ideas in society by giving justification for these inequalities.

Precisely because sport is such a charged and visible arena for sexism it can be an important platform to challenge these types of oppression.

In 1973 Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a tennis battle of the sexes in front of a massive audience which was a symbolic victory for women in earning respect for not only women’s physical abilities but also against the commonly held idea at the time that women didn’t have the nerves to cope with high pressure situations like men did. In that same year Billie Jean King and the women’s players union she helped create threatened to strike during the US Open and subsequently won equal pay for women at the US Open. Today, tennis is one of the only sports in the world with equal pay for women at its major events the Australian, US and French Opens.

In the hope of expanding their ability to profit by objectifying women’s bodies, Mortaza’s company has recently established the Lingerie Basketball League which is taking off in leaps and bounds in the US. I shudder to think about how far the lingerie sports leagues can spread. At some point the players involved have to take a stand. Instead of obediently donning their pants and bras week after week, they can fight, just like Billie Jean King and others did in a way that changed women’s tennis forever. They can be part of making history - break down stereotypes and inspire other exploited sections of society to do the same.

In the mean time, the rest of us who aren’t built like avatars but who are exploited and oppressed, need to keep resisting so that when the time comes for athletes to take a stand, they are able to find support and ultimately win.

Nixon proves AFL's got the "issues"

The release of a nude photo of St Kilda Captain, Nick Reiwoldt and two team mates helped bring in 2011 with all the class we’ve come to expect from Australian footballers. And all the sexism we’ve come to expect from those commenting on them. The 17 year old woman who released the photos accessed them while having a sexual relationship with another St Kilda player, Sam Gilbert. She was then subjected to a barrage of abuse and told by the AFL that she “has issues” (unlike Reiwoldt in whom they stated they had great faith in as an individual). Now Reiwoldt’s 47 year old manager has admitted to having inappropriate dealings with the young woman while she was holed up in a hotel room paid for by the St Kilda football club. It’s a series of events that make Sam Newman’s crass blowup doll scandal look like Disney On Ice.

Player manager, Ricky Nixon, admitted to seeing the young woman on Valentine’s Day this week and the Herald Sun claims they saw him leave the woman’s hotel at around 7.15am the following morning. The young woman alleges he also provided her with alcohol during their relationship which lasted several weeks. Nixon is player manager to three players involved in the original naked photo scandal – Reiwoldt, Nick Dal Santo and Sam Gilbert. Dal Santo was naked in a separate photo released and Sam Gilbert was the player who took the photos and had the relationship with the then 16 year old woman.

Nixon denies having sex with the teen and providing her with alcohol but admits he made a series of bad decisions by visiting the woman to try to help her. This isn’t the first spectacularly bad judgment call by Nixon. He is notorious for his rash actions which have included drink driving his Alfa Romeo into a tram on his way home from work in 2009, getting arrested for public drunkenness at the Caulfield Cup in 2002 and escorting his client Ben Cousins to Riva nightclub while Cousins was at the Tigers trying to recover from his drug addiction. He also represented Wayne Carey from the time Carey was 18 through to 2002 when news broke of Carey’s affair with his best friend’s wife.

Nixon proclaimed repeatedly on radio this morning that the teenager “needs help”. It’s Nixon who needs help and so does the game. Just at the time when the AFL should be encouraging more women to be involved in the sport to try to curb its sexism issues, the double standard applied to the young woman compared with the St Kilda players and Nixon proves that sexism is alive and well in the sport. Channel Ten has also fumbled their opportunity to contribute to a culture change by recently demoting the game’s only female commentator, Kelli Underwood, after a two year trial at the commentary desk.

The question must be asked, where are the players and members of the football community who oppose these grubby goings on? We know that not all players are misogynist, nor do all have tiny enough brains to treat a 16 year old so badly and take photos of their team mates naked. Harry O’Brien has rightly spoken out against the focus on women’s fashion at the Brownlow Medal awards night. More players need to join him in speaking out about sexism and condemning personalities like Nixon who have obviously been a toxic influence on the game’s culture and useless in mentoring young footballers to become decent and respectful human beings.

I’m Not Boring, You’re Boring: Wozniacki To Press

World Number 1 tennis player, Caroline Wozniacki, today caught the waiting Australian Open media by surprised when she opened her press conference herself.

She announced that the previous day she had fielded a question from a reporter about her interviews being boring and repetitive but that it was because she always got asked the same questions. “I know what you’re going to ask me already so I’m just going to start with the answer”. She proceeded describe how good her racquet feels and how good she felt on the court. “Now you can maybe give me some questions that are a little bit interesting and are a little bit different to what I usually get.”

It’s not every day that the press get pulled up on their laziness and it could have been accepted as a wake up call. As it turned out, the reporters in the media pack didn’t respond well to having their egos bruised. Wozniacki was forced to field new types of questions, mostly asked in sarcasm, on topics like climate change, the new Liverpool coach and what she looks for in a “guy”.

While schedules are tight and journalists are often pushed to the limit for deadlines, we can excuse the odd dull question and answer session. But when challenged, resorting to questions about what Wozniacki looks for in a male partner is inexcusable. Male athletes are never asked this question and nor should female athletes have to endure this kind of sexist questioning, implying that their quest for a partner has an impact on their performance as an athlete.

The journalists in the room only had to do a two minute Google search to discover that Wozniacki is not at all boring. She turned pro at 15. Why not ask about how she approaches tournaments differently now that she is 20? It is known that Wozniacki likes listening to Rihanna to get psyched up for matches. What does her pre-match routine entail at the moment? She had a cricket session with Peter Siddle and on Thursday and would certainly have something to say about the difference of sporting cultures in Denmark compared with Australia.

It will be very interesting to see how sports journalism reacts to this confrontation by Wozniacki and whether it has any impact during the last week of the tournament or in the coming years. Media companies in Australia are making more than enough money to assist their sports journalist and improve this area of their work.

Netball is soaring despite being shunned by the back page

It’s that time of the year again – time for netball fans to get out their magnifying glasses and search through the papers for the results of the ANZ Netball Championships. Sunday’s grand final between the Adelaide Thunderbirds and the Waikato Magic had everything – the best goal shooter in the world, Australia-New Zealand rivalry and a great narrative with both teams going for their first championship win.

And yet, the game was allocated barely 400 words in The Australian newspaper.

Netball is looking slicker than ever. It has been the most played social sport in Australia for years but with the launch of the ANZ Championships trans-Tasman league in 2008, the game took off at the elite level. Bigger sponsors have allowed more players to become professional and the longer hours in the gym have translated to players who are faster, stronger and more entertaining than ever. Games are being televised in a polished format on One HD with the aid of $400 000 from the Federal Government.

If netball is anything to go by, surely women’s sport is on a positive trajectory. Surely it’s only a matter of time before women’s sport receives the recognition it deserves and features equally amongst the back pages of the paper with the men’s football codes and men’s cricket. However, in the US, sports like women's college basketball have not been able to break through to this level of coverage despite massive crowds and an enormous fan base.

In fact, a recent US study has shown that over the last ten years coverage of women’s sport has actually decreased. The researchers recorded amount of time evening news programs spent reporting on women’s sport. They found that the time allocated to women’s sport decreased from 8.7% of all sports coverage in 1999 to around 1.6% in 2009. The recorded coverage even included instances when female partners of male sports stars were mentioned.

Coverage of women’s sport prior to 1999 had been increasing steadily and few people would have expected the drop seen in the last ten years.

The report is shocking and the owners of the media outlets around the world who continue to shun women’s sport should be ashamed. Fans of women’s sport and opponents of women’s oppression have a long fight ahead. The undeniable sexism that exists in areas like women’s sport will not automatically disappear. In fact the US study has shown that without added pressure on the owners of news networks women’s sport could tragically lose ground.