Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Women should be athletes, not sex ads

I have been watching bits of the Olympics, and have been getting more and more annoyed about the sexism on display - that has always been on display in women's sports since the 1970s.

Women's sports don't draw enough crowds. Solution? Have them wear really, really tight outfits so that guys (and women who like that sort of thing) will flock to see them. The guys don't have respect for the women, they dont' have respect for the sport involved, but they're certainly willing to pay to see breasts thrusting out of shirts and thighs leading up into the nether regions.

The most egregious is the women beach volleyballers. In the first place of course, beach volleyball isn't a sport, regardless of whether it's being played by men or women. But the women wear the skimpiest of skimpy bikini bottoms, and only slightly larger halter tops. (Isn't it odd how no big breasted women ever play in these events? Well, big breasted women are taught from an earlier age not to thrust themselves forward, as are of course plain-looking women.)

On the other hand, I was delighted... in a sense... to see the men's swimsuits used in the diving competitions. They also wore the skimpiest of skimpy bikinis! And I gotta tell you, much as I like lookng at muscular men, I don't really get a thrill out of looking at those folds of flesh descending downward that end up as the penis. Could you wear something two inches higher so I dont have to look at that?

Now, of course, the ultimate indignity. Ping pong people aren't crowding into the stands, so the women are urged to show more curves. (The article doesn't mention if the men's side is getting more audience member - if it's also suffering, will the guys be forced to play without shirts at all. Hey, if they've got a bit of muscles, I'd watch that.)

Here's the article:
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/tabletennis/news?slug=reu-tabletennisskirts_pix&prov=reuters&type=lgns, and one excerpt from it:

One player, Japan’s Naomi Yotsumoto, has taken matters into her own hands. At the Japanese national championships last year, she played in a daring ensemble of her own design: knee socks, a pleated mini-skirt and a shirt that left one shoulder bare.


If women want respect as athletes, they've got to dress as athletes, not as sex objects. No, I'm not advocating that they wear burkhas and full-length clothing like the fundamentalists Muslims make their women wear (not that that did Mehbooba Ahadyar, Afghanistan's only female athlete, wore all that stuff and was still called a whore by the Muslims, and now she's disappared and no one seems to know (or care) what has become of her.

On that note, Yay. A woman from Bahrain, dressed in a long sleeved white shirt and long leggings, and a white scarf on her head (hiding that horrible hair that inflames poor, innocentmen to lust), Roqaya Al-Gassra, has won a a heat on one of these track and field races. [Just saw it on my TV, but has the sound down, because a) I can't stand the commentators and b) I'm not really that interested in track and field. Of course, her success is frightening. Who knows how many psychotic fundamentalist Muslims might not even now be planning to punish her because she dared to show joy and confidence to the world! Women aren't allowed to feel like that!

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