Gender Trouble; or, Why Some Areas of International Sport Appear to Be a Bit Edwardian, Still

Marginality: 7/10 (I thought this topic was either incredibly marginal [up near 10], because the sidelining aspects of gender in sport are such troubling issues, or not at all, because these questions are so very mainstream. In the end, I wussed out and split the difference.)


Ninety-nine years ago this summer, Emily Davison drew a definite and long-lasting link between gender and politics. Not only was her protest set against the back-drop of a sporting event, it was fatally enmeshed in one; nearly a century later, however, it appears that Davison's sacrifice hasn't meant an awful lot. At least if the following three stories are anything to go by.

(1) Zoe Smith
I've got the news round-up on in the background, and they've just shown highlights from Zoe Smith's weightlifting. She's an articulate, intelligent, funny, self-deprecating, beautiful young woman. Does any of this matter in the context of her sporting achievements this afternoon? Not a jot. What matters is that, at the age of 18, she came in the top twelve in the world in her weight class. There were only 11 women who did better than her, a full 10 years before her weightlifting peak. Yet internet trolls are more inclined to focus on her looks and her weight. I know there's been criticism of Tom Daley since his perceived failure today, but none of that was related to his physique; in Smith's case, could it perchance be to do with her gender?

(2) Japanese Football
(H/T @bengoldacre) As I posted on Twitter a couple of days ago, the Japanese Football Association have a strange attitude to gender equality: while the men's football team travelled in first-class seats on the flight to the UK, the women's team travelled in economy. This was in spite of the fact that the women's team are ranked 3rd in the world, while the men's team barely scrape into the top 20. Although the relative financial pulling powers of the two teams might have had something to do with this -- 'they attract more income, therefore they get more spent on them', sort of thing -- behind every financial decision is a political one: why do the male players, inferior to their female counterparts in terms of skill, attract more money? Until we start to address these sorts of underlying questions, the vicious circle (men are seen as better than women => they are favoured more => they have more spent on them => they are seen as better than women) will keep on turning.

(3) Victoria Pendleton
Yesterday, a press conference with Victoria Pendleton that focused on the rivalry between the British cyclist and the Australian Anna Meares kicked off with the frankly astonishing question 'is Anna Meares a cow?':

On Five Live, one of the journalists very astutely commented that she doubted a similar question would be asked of a male athlete, switching 'cow' for 'sod' (I suspect she would have used something stronger in a less public-broadcasting context). This got me thinking: why is this, and what does it imply about media attitudes to sportspeople? Put simply, this question demotes women: instead of competitors, they are petty bitches; instead of sportspeople, they are political-correctness-gorn-mad glorified housewives. And until these sort of attitudes start to change, we're all going to be the worse for it: women, men, athletes, and soundbite-hungry, morally defunct journalists alike.

'Everybody hates us -- we don't care'

Marginality score: 6/10 (This scoring will be a regular thing, as I give my highly objective tariff for the relative marginal status of each of the sports/competitors I blog about. Because everyone likes ratings, right? Or maybe it's just stats geeks like me.)

Everyone's favourite angry Manxman gave a couple of interesting responses when being interviewed after his second consecutive failure to win Olympic cycling gold. One was a delightfully ranty answer to an unwelcome question about the after-effects of the Tour de France on his performance in London:

The other was a much more introspective, sombre sequence; according to Sad Cavendish (let's call him Mark Mark I), the failure of the British team was down to the lack of help they got from other national teams:

For those of you not familiar with the ins and outs of cycling road racing (so that's the more sane 98% of the population), a word about team tactics: in a stage race like the Tour de France, success on any one day is not a very big issue; overall time -- the General Classification -- is key, so there's little point in busting a gut to finish as high as possible on any one day. Bradley Wiggins, this year's TdF winner, only won two stages out of 20, but consistently finishing in the top 20 or so was enough for him to win by a margin of nearly 3-and-a-half minutes. Often, a breakaway of 6-10 riders will escape the pack (peloton) and one of those will win the stage; unless someone who's high up in the overall standings joins one of these breakaways, the rest of the riders -- who are divided into teams of 9 -- won't bother chasing them down.

In a one-off race, however (the Olympic road race, for instance), there are two major differences. First of all, overall position does matter (whatever your gym teacher told you -- try telling someone like Steve Redgrave that it's 'the taking part that counts'), and secondly, the teams are much smaller -- 4, rather than 9. So when a breakaway gets away from the field, reeling it in is both more important than in a longer race (as if the breakaway isn't caught, those in the peloton won't get medals) and more difficult (more riders on a team = more bodies to spare chasing down escapees = an easier ride for the team favourite [in France, Wiggins; in London, Cav]).

To return to the first interview, with Angry Cavendish (Mark Mark II), the interviewer may have had a point, although it might have been a bit galling for AC to hear that the media and supporters might have thought his month in France had a part to play in his failure. Perhaps the members of the British team, 3 of whom took part in this year's TdF (Cavendish, Wiggins, and David Millar), were still in 'stage race mode': when they realised that a breakaway was forming ahead of the peloton, maybe there was a collective assumption that this wasn't such a problem. 'Tour de France fatigue', in other words, might take various forms.

Torch, Torch, Run with Torch

My first post of a marginal nature concerns the sideshow of lighting the Olympic flame. This can be the most beautiful of moments (think of Mohammed Ali in 1996), but it's usually a bit of a pointless exercise (the 22-year-old virtual unknown John Mark in 1948 springs to mind). So when Daley Thompson and Steve Redgrave (sorry, Sir SR) have a slightly undignified spat about which of them should light the Olympic cauldron this year, it feels ridiculous precisely because it's often such a meaningless accolade.

That's not the only reason it's mildly annoying, though: it also feels a little like two 6-year-olds arguing over the ownership of a toy car. So while I'm secretly a bit of a Redgave-ite (five golds! in different Olympics!!), I say screw the Seb-Coe-befriending and other politicking, and let's give it to neither of them. Here are a few ideas, with their Olympic credentials (Redgrave and Thompson's records included for the purposes of comparison):

Sir Steve Redgrave: 5 Olympic Titles, 9 World Titles, 0 World Records
Daley Thompson: 2 OT, 1 WT, 4 WR
Matthew Pinsent: 4 OT, 10 WT, 1 WR*
Dame Kelly Holmes: 2 OT, 0 WT, 0 WR
Ben Ainslie: 3 OT, 11 WT, 0 WR
Sir Chris Hoy: 4 OT, 11 WT, 2 WR
Sally Gunnell: 1 OT, 1 WT, 1 WR
Linford Christie: 1 OT, 1 WT, 4 WR**
Sir Roger Bannister: 0 OT, 0 WT, 1 WR
Paula Radcliffe: 0 OT, 4 WT, 3 WR

* Pinsent once held the WR for the largest lung capacity of a sportsman, at 8.5 litres. Thank you, Wikipedia...
** Christie's 4 WRs include 3 in the 35--39 masters age group.

It looks like the Torch-bearer should be another knighted individual sportsman, then. Put your Bran Flakes down, Sir Chris: you've got some lighting to do. (Honourable mention to Ben Ainslie, though: who knew he was that successful?)

BCC Redux: Marginal Olympics

So, 'Beyond Cow Corner' is back, in time for the Olympics. But every man, woman, and canine will be writing about sport over the next few weeks -- how was I going to be different? I mused, somewhat melodramatically. Luckily, I was saved from drowning in rhetoric by my other half, who suggested I take a look at the events from a marginal perspective: niche sports, sidelined nationalities, liminal athletes, etc. (Ok, that wasn't a real 'etc.' -- I'd run out of both suitable nouns, and synonyms for 'marginal'.) All comments, criticisms, lavish praise, and suggestions of topics for future topics welcome. 

(First up, I go for the important issues: who should be carrying the Olympic torch?)