Women in sport
Over the last few years I have become increasingly interested in feminism. I have always been a feminist, even if I may not have called myself as such. I finished school in the late 1990s (class of 2000, to be precise) and I believed I could have it all - career and family (not that I ever wanted kids but that's not relevant to this discussion). What is, is that when I left school I slowly began to realise that the story I'd been sold was a pack of lies. Having it all is hard, some might say impossible. There's always compromise and it soon became apparent to me that the bulk of the compromise seemed to fall on women. That's not true, of course, but the compromise falls differently for men and women. Men are supposed to compromise by putting their work first - but working late at the office and being always on call so that their family takes second place. Women, on the other hand are supposed to always put their family first, above and beyond their job or even their own interests. The pressures are different but as a single woman with no intention of having kids I found the forced inclusion into a group that would abandon careers as soon as they got the whiff of baby powder and nappies insulting. But even worse was when I got older and realised it didn't matter if I did or didn't want kids, there was no reason why a job or career should take precedence over my personal time and I began to resent the fact that because I didn't have a 'good excuse' to leave work early or take extra time off by having kids I was less deserving of flexi-time. Of course, as a perennial student most of this was hypothetical anger and annoyance, but it existed nonetheless.
The more I've read about feminism the more (unsurprisingly) I've learned and the more I've realised that sexism is all around. Yes, the blatent innuendo of the early James Bond movies and Mad Men may have passed, with the slapping of secretaries bums and 'compliments' of "good girl", but microaggressions still exist and in some ways they're more insidious than the outright sexism of days past. At least pinching an employee's bottom is (today) seen as obvious sexual harassment. Talking over your female colleagues, or ignoring their comments only to acknowledge a male colleague making exactly the same point is harder to quantify, and harder to broach. People aren't good at conflict. Women especially are taught not to create conflict so it's much easier to sit there scowling than point out that you made that very same point 5 minutes ago and were completely ignored.
My point here isn't to get into feminist theory, but to highlight the fact that sexism is easy to overlook but once you blinders have been removed you start to see it everywhere. Case in point is the latest list from The Independent. The Indy is famous for its lists of influential people. It particularly likes 'Pink Lists', highlighting LGBTQ advocates. The complaints I'm about to make may be relevant to these lists too, but not being someone who's heavily involved in those communities I wouldn't like to judge.
The most recent list is 'the 50 most influential women in sports'. The sentiment is good, it's the execution I have a problem with. It's hard to make objective statements without an equivalent male list, but I doubt that list would have the male equivalent of Davina McCall (number 42) or Stella McCartney (number 37) on it. The list includes 13 women in managerial positions, two of whom are 'former' or 'ex', and one of whom is 'assistant medical director'. Would a list of influential sportsmen list former managers and an assistant MD as 'the most influential' men in sport? I doubt it.
My point here isn't to get into feminist theory, but to highlight the fact that sexism is easy to overlook but once you blinders have been removed you start to see it everywhere. Case in point is the latest list from The Independent. The Indy is famous for its lists of influential people. It particularly likes 'Pink Lists', highlighting LGBTQ advocates. The complaints I'm about to make may be relevant to these lists too, but not being someone who's heavily involved in those communities I wouldn't like to judge.
The most recent list is 'the 50 most influential women in sports'. The sentiment is good, it's the execution I have a problem with. It's hard to make objective statements without an equivalent male list, but I doubt that list would have the male equivalent of Davina McCall (number 42) or Stella McCartney (number 37) on it. The list includes 13 women in managerial positions, two of whom are 'former' or 'ex', and one of whom is 'assistant medical director'. Would a list of influential sportsmen list former managers and an assistant MD as 'the most influential' men in sport? I doubt it.
As someone who loves working 'behind the scenes' and who knows the work that's needed to help those who stand in the limelight, I'm not at all minimising their work or influence. My problem is that an equivalent list of men would not have nearly so many unknown names. I went through the list and found 6 names I recognised (including the aforementioned Stella McCartney and Davina McCall, most famous to me - and I'm sure to many - as the daughter of a Beetles and erstwhile fashion designer and the former presenter of Big Brother). The others, if you're interested were Clare Balding (former horse racing presenter and now doyenne of BBC sports), Judy Murray (Andy's mum), Jessica Ennis Hill (a sportswoman but I couldn't tell you what sport) and Gabby Logan (who's name I recognise but don't know anything about and realise I have confused in my mind with Gabby Roslin, former presenter of ITV's saturday morning kids show Motormouth). All the rest are, and I'm sorry, non-entities. It could be argued that this is because I have no interest in sport whatsoever. And it's true. Apart from an occasional interest in Wimbledon and an old (but long dead) interest in Formula 1, I know nothing about sport. Yet I could still name 10 sportsmen, and some of them would even be contemporaries! I couldn't do the same for sportswomen. They just don't have the same cultural cache, the same popularity and notoriety, the same headline grabbing quality.
My biggest problem with the list is how underwhelming it is. It seems to be clutching at straws. They set themselves a target of '50 influential women in sport' and by god they were going to list 50 women. Who have some relevance to sport. Even if it's just that they designed the Olympic and Paralympic team clothes, or have made some keep fit DVDs.
I'm not denigrating the work these women have done, far from it. I applaud and admire their hard work, skill and determination. But the list seems to highlight that however excellent women are at sport, or at managing sport, they are not influential. Only those who are already interested and inspired will know their names. How many people who aren't actively interested in women's football will know the names of Casey Stoney or Annie Zadie or Steph Houghton, three women at the top of women's football? Yet even I (who has never been interested in football) can name players and coaches of the men's team (again, maybe not contemporary, but there are names in my brain for no reason other than they osmosed from popular consciousness. Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Eriksson, Hoddle. . . Yes, they're from decades ago but I didn't even know there was a women's team back them, let alone be able to name any of the members).
I'm not going to start watching women's sport. I don't get much enjoyment from watching sport so I'm not going to force myself just to put two fingers up to the patriarchy, but the list really highlights how marginalised women's sport is. I really can't imagine a list of influential male sportsmen which lists so many lowly positions. And, again, that's not to denigrate the women who hold those positions. To be honest, I'm sure they're capable of much, much more, but the problem is that the positions they have seem to be largely positions men don't care about fighting for. Assistant medical director? Designer of the Olympic outfits? Would a list of men really find room to celebrate these people? Or would it be s full of people who actually have influence and power that the male equivalents in these roles wouldn't get a look in?
This is what I mean about how taking off the blinders exposes a world of sexism you never knew was there. At first glance, this list is great. It celebrates women who have risen to the nearly top eschelons of sport. But when you really look you wonder, is this the best we can do? Why is it that so many of these people are anonymous? It really isn't because they aren't capable of doing any better, all these women are incredibly capable. The question is why haven't they done any better? And the answer is surely sexism.
My biggest problem with the list is how underwhelming it is. It seems to be clutching at straws. They set themselves a target of '50 influential women in sport' and by god they were going to list 50 women. Who have some relevance to sport. Even if it's just that they designed the Olympic and Paralympic team clothes, or have made some keep fit DVDs.
I'm not denigrating the work these women have done, far from it. I applaud and admire their hard work, skill and determination. But the list seems to highlight that however excellent women are at sport, or at managing sport, they are not influential. Only those who are already interested and inspired will know their names. How many people who aren't actively interested in women's football will know the names of Casey Stoney or Annie Zadie or Steph Houghton, three women at the top of women's football? Yet even I (who has never been interested in football) can name players and coaches of the men's team (again, maybe not contemporary, but there are names in my brain for no reason other than they osmosed from popular consciousness. Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Eriksson, Hoddle. . . Yes, they're from decades ago but I didn't even know there was a women's team back them, let alone be able to name any of the members).
I'm not going to start watching women's sport. I don't get much enjoyment from watching sport so I'm not going to force myself just to put two fingers up to the patriarchy, but the list really highlights how marginalised women's sport is. I really can't imagine a list of influential male sportsmen which lists so many lowly positions. And, again, that's not to denigrate the women who hold those positions. To be honest, I'm sure they're capable of much, much more, but the problem is that the positions they have seem to be largely positions men don't care about fighting for. Assistant medical director? Designer of the Olympic outfits? Would a list of men really find room to celebrate these people? Or would it be s full of people who actually have influence and power that the male equivalents in these roles wouldn't get a look in?
This is what I mean about how taking off the blinders exposes a world of sexism you never knew was there. At first glance, this list is great. It celebrates women who have risen to the nearly top eschelons of sport. But when you really look you wonder, is this the best we can do? Why is it that so many of these people are anonymous? It really isn't because they aren't capable of doing any better, all these women are incredibly capable. The question is why haven't they done any better? And the answer is surely sexism.
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