When organisers of the Paris Olympics decided to bill it as the “equal Games” – in celebration of the fact that, for the first time, women make up 50 per cent of the competitors – the claim was always going to come in for scrutiny.
But it found itself severely tested on day two , and by a commentator who should have known better.
Having secured gold in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay , the Australian quartet of Emma McKeon, Shayna Jack, Mollie O’Callaghan and Meg Harris made their way out of the Paris Aquatic Centre. It was then that Eurosport commentator Bob Ballard said: “Well, the women, just finishing up. You know what women are like… hanging around, doing their makeup…”
The outrageous comment went viral instantly, and Ballard was subsequently removed from Eurosport’s broadcasting roster.
Sports commentary is an art form. It takes a sharp mind and a keen eye to encapsulate a moment for an audience, to translate the action in a sports arena to the listener or viewer.
Ballard has had a long and successful career in commentating. The BBC has described him as “a stalwart of global sports coverage since the 1980s, reporting on multiple Olympic Games and world championships”.
So, with all that experience behind him, what part of Ballard suddenly made him feel it was acceptable to make such an obviously sexist comment?
Misogynist language isn’t new to the Olympics. During the Rio Games in 2016, Mail Online described American swimmer Katie Ledecky as “the female Michael Phelps”. When US gymnast Simone Biles gave an incredible performance on the uneven bars, an NBC commentator gave a backhanded compliment, saying: “I think she might even go higher than the men.”
Some comedians appear to think that female Olympians are fair game. At the 2012 London Games, US TV host Conan O’Brien tweeted that weightlifter Holley Mangold would “ bring home the gold – and four guys against their will”. And it was during Beijing 2008 that Frankie Boyle first made his now infamous jibes about gold-medal swimmer Rebecca Adlington , saying she “looks pretty weird... like someone who’s looking at themselves in the back of a spoon”.
According to a study by Cambridge University Press, sexist thinking runs through the Games. Researchers analysed millions of words relating to men and women and Olympic sports in the Cambridge international corpus (CIC) and the sports corpus – enormous databases of news articles and social media posts. The study found that language around female competitors focussed disproportionately on appearance, clothes and personal lives. Common word combinations for women included “aged”, “older”, “pregnant” and “married” or “unmarried”. In contrast, top word combinations for male athletes included “fastest”, “strong”, “big” and “great”.
I can think of several common examples of such casual sexism in sports reporting. If you listen out for it, you’ll hear the word “girls” often used as a descriptor of women competing in sport. But can you remember the last time you heard a group of sportsmen being referred to as boys?
Likewise, when certain sports are discussed in the media, it is often assumed that the sport being mentioned in the report is the men’s game. How often do we hear the media refer to “women’s football”, whereas men’s football is just “football”?
However, the dial has definitely moved. The proportion of female athletes competing has increased in every Olympic Games since 1964, when it was 13.2 per cent. By Rio 2016, it was 45 per cent. Only now do we finally have a 50:50 ratio.
Female participation in sports has increased, making the media more aware of its responsibility when covering female athletes. The fact that major broadcasters such as Eurosport act swiftly when Ballardisms occur is proof of real progress. As coverage improves, sexist language and comments are more noticeable when they happen.
But I bet this won’t be the last bit of casual sexism we hear during these Olympics. Viewers, on your marks…
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