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New Zealand rowers Lucy Spoors and Brooke Francis, who both recently had children, won gold in the women’s double sculls.
photo: OLIVIER MOLIN/AFP
Paris made some big promises before the Games. Triathletes would swim in the heavily polluted urban Seine River, and the Games would be gender-equal. That meant there would be nearly equal numbers of male and female athletes, and they would be described the same way in sports commentary.
At first, achieving these benchmarks was not easy. put off On the third day, veteran British broadcaster Bob Ballard Pack up and go He also joked that the female swimmers who won medals extended their celebrations because they were “wearing make-up”.
But it seems to be clearing up. Athletes swim in the Seine. Professor Tony Bruce, a sociologist at Auckland University who is analysing the portrayal of female athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics, said that despite some hyperbole about “girls” and “ladies” – disparaging terms for some of the strongest and fastest people in the world – TV presenters have so far made huge strides.
“We’re starting to see this real focus — especially at the Olympics — on making sure we don’t accidentally fall into old patterns of talking about, photographing or representing men and women differently,” she said, “but also recognizing that women’s sport is different than men’s sport.”
Tony Bruce is Professor of Sociology at the University of Auckland.
photo: supply
How can we comment on sports equally?
Bruce, a former journalist, said broadcasters need to avoid words or topics that reinforce gender stereotypes and use similar language for male and female players.
Forget girls, women and chicks. According to the International Olympic Committee, commentators should use “female” or “woman” to match the common references to “man” and “male”. Drawing Guide Distributed to the media. The guide was first published in 2018 and updated for Paris.
The guide recommends moving away from belligerent, masculine statements such as “she swam like a man/beast and won the race” and instead using statements such as “she swam with determination and won the race.”
For competitive women’s events, don’t use the description “tough fights”; use “exciting matches.”
“Ah, the chicks are crying.” No. “These winners have a lot of emotion.” Yes.
Why are words important?
Historically, women’s sports have been portrayed as inferior to men’s sports. “Language plays a big role in this, and people’s understanding of the world is achieved through language,” Bruce said.
How bad was it before?
“In the past there have been some shocking comments made by male commentators and you can feel every woman in New Zealand rolling their eyes and saying ‘really?’ This is not our life,” Bruce said.
Bruce said that in the 1980s, commentators were happy to ignore a female athlete’s athletic achievements or training and comment on “she’s a good cook and she cooks for her husband.”
Even at the last Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Bruce heard many commentators return to using the old terms “girl” and “lady”. “Some commentators, especially older British male commentators, seemed obsessed with the word “lady” and would hardly say the word “woman”, “she said.
New Zealand gold medal rowers Lucy Spoors and Brooke Francis with their children.
photo: Brooke Francis/Instagram
What about the references to pregnancy and motherhood?
Childcare in the Olympic Village, new mothers winning medals and fencer Nada Hafez competing Seven months pregnant. These photos from Paris were newsworthy and praised.
So how do commentators talk about pregnancy and parenthood when male athletes don’t have the same experiences? References to parenthood among male athletes seem a bit far-fetched.
Bruce said broadcasters do a good job of walking the line, though. Pregnancy among female athletes is talked about like an injury — something that temporarily keeps you out of games and training.
These included how rowing commentators talked about New Zealand rowers Lucy Sporse and Brooke Francis, who had recently given birth to children. Winning Gold Women’s double sculls competition.
“Being an elite professional female athlete, pregnancy started to become normalized,” Bruce said.
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