Wow. These few days have been a feminist blogger's dream. Saturday: Captain Cattle Prod. Sunday: jaw-droppingly sexist football commentators. Monday: Dominic Raab, MP, calls for an end to feminist bigotry. (That really deserves a post all of its own - give me a minute...) I dread to think what joys today's Standard will bring. But until then, let's catch up with Andy "dickhead" Gray and Richard "where am I?" Keys!
What amazes me about their comments is the fact that their intractable resistance to the idea of women becoming a part of their sacred game is so strong that it actually overrides what they see with their own eyes. I mean: they had access to endless replays from every conceivable angle, they could speed it up, slow it down, freeze frame it at the exact second the ball was played forward, and Torres was clearly, visibly, right in front of their faces, onside. But because that decision was made by a woman, the weight of their prejudice (displayed before the match, before she'd even picked up her shiny flag) was great enough to make them see what they assumed must be happening.
It's just such a retrograde clusterfuck. Does anyone else honestly believe that women - by virtue of their ovaries, love of kittens, overgrown chromosomes, whatever* - are simply incapable of understanding the offside rule? That we can be computer programmers, brain surgeons, world leaders, but the esoteric concept of 'a player is in an offside position if he is nearer to the opponent's goal line than both the ball and the second-to-last opposing player' just slides right off our delicate lady brains? I use it as a joke, a ridiculously over-the-top example of Jim Davidson style old-skool sexism. I had no idea anyone actually believed it any more. But here we are.
* Which is not to imply that such things make the woman, but I'm guessing that such mind-bogglingly simplistic thinking does not have space to consider the existence of trans people.
The Sun, of course, dealt with this in their trademark sensitive fashion:
And finally, courtesy of the Manpanion...
Before the Gray/Keys comments came out, Sky's fabulous Goals On Sunday struggled somewhat - while praising Sian Massey for doing her job correctly, they tried desperately to get the right terminology. "Female linesman?" "Well, the lady linesman." "Hang on, shouldn't that be lady lineswoman?" Well, no, actually if you want to be accurate, then the term is assistant referree. A term quite plausibly brought in to help stop sex being an issue as opposed to making the right decisions.
Right, now this female lady blogswoman had better get some actual work done before the next sexist meteorite hits. Hold tight.
Here via feministe.
ReplyDeleteThis was just a clusterfuck of crappy proportions and altho' there was lots of outrage in the papers I got the impression that it was more for show. Especially going by my flist on facebook. For a solid week I had to see status updates belitting the whole situation. I tried to point out that it was just as bad as the stuff that AG and RK said to no avail. That particular dude is on ignore now!
True - though I have had the heartening experience of hearing lots of random strangers discussing sexism on the bus.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by :)