Despite countless calls from organisers that the Paris 2024 Olympics would be the “equal” games with a 50/50 split of male and female athletes, sexist commentary, remarks and design faux pas have still rattled the games.
We are now a full week into the Paris 2024 Olympics, and Aussies are rounding in on the medal table. Eight gold medals, six silver medals, and four bronze medals put us at fourth overall. Even more remarkable, all eight gold medals have been won by female athletes.
Despite all of this, sexism is still running rampant in Paris and across the world as female athletes continue to break unbelievable records leaving the future of Paris’ label as the “equal” games in question.
A Tennis commentator from the private French-Monégasque radio station RMC has been slammed over comments made during the Women’s doubles match between France’s Caroline Garcia and Diane Parry and Italy’s Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini.
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“On the left, there’s Sara Errani, who’s the boss,” the commentator said. “She does everything: the washing up, the cooking up, the mopping up”.
The comments were met with outrage on social media. In a joint statement, The French Association of Women Sports Journalists and the Union of Sports Journalists in France condemned the comments in the first “equal games”. “We remind you that sexist and misogynistic comments have no place in an international competition”.
The news comes just a few days after Eurosport commentator Bob Ballard was sacked for comments made against the Australian women’s 4×100 meter freestyle relay swimming team.
As our athletes revelled in their well-deserved glory, the cheers of the nation behind them, Ballard was not as impressed, giving them a cue to hurry up. “Well the women just finishing up,” Ballard said to millions across the continent. “You know what women are like … hanging around, doing their make-up”.
While Ballard tried to laugh off the sexist comment, his co-commentator, Lizzie Simmonds, immediately called him out, deeming the comment “outrageous”.
Both the French Association of Women Sports Journalists and the Union of Sports Journalists in France welcomed the decision to suspend Ballard.
Ballard took to social media after he was dismissed to apologise for the comments. “The comments I made during the Australian freestyle relay victory ceremony on Saturday have caused some offence. It was never my intention to upset or belittle anyone and, if I did, I apologise. I am a massive advocate of women’s sport,” he wrote in a post to X on Monday.
Right here it is the statement pt 1:
The comments I made during the Australian freestyle relay victory ceremony on Saturday have caused some offence. It was never my intention to upset or belittle anyone and, if I did, I apologise. I am a massive advocate of women’s sport.
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— Bob Ballard (@bobballardsport) July 29, 2024
US Women’s Rugby Player Ilona Maher, who has been prolific on social media during the lead-up to and the first week of the games, has also faced intense backlash and comments relating to her appearance, with many questioning if she was on steroids and flat out calling her a man.
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“Don’t let anybody try and try to define or dictate how you feel about yourself. You get to decide that,” she said, breaking down in an emotional video shared on Fangirl Sports Network’s Instagram page. “People out there put women in a box, and they think women should be fragile, and petite, and quiet and meek. But that’s not the case; women can be strong, and they can take up space”.
Even before the games kicked off, social media was outraged over the high-cut Nike US Women’s track uniform, while the men’s uniform included shorts. US runner Lauren Fleshman took to Instagram to call out the uniform for making professional sport “harder for half the population”.
“Professional athletes should be able to compete without dedicating brain space to constant pube vigilance or the mental gymnastics of having every vulnerable piece of your body on display. Women’s kits should be in service to performance, mentally and physically. If this outfit was truly beneficial to physical performance, men would wear it. This is not an elite athletic kit for track and field. This is a costume born of patriarchal forces that are no longer welcome or needed to get eyes on women’s sports,” she said in the post.
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Of course, B&T can’t deny that huge inroads have been made in balancing gender equality in these games. The 50/50 split of male and female athletes was just the start.
Olympic operators themselves have even confessed that there is often a disparity in coverage of women’s events, with far more frequent close-up images of female athletes shown than males. Yiannis Exarchos, the head of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) said that the majority of camera operators are male and that a training session was held last year for female camera operators to help increase equality in this area in the future.
“It is very important to make efforts in how you showcase the sports” Exarchos said at a press briefing. “Unfortunately, in some events they [women] are still being filmed in a way that you can identify that stereotypes and sexism remains, even from the way in which some camera operators are framing differently men and women athletes”.
“Women athletes are not there because they are more attractive or sexy or whatever,” said Exarchos.”They are there because they are elite athletes, they are there for their sporting performance, they should be showcased in the same way”.
Breastfeeding athletes have also been given private rooms and access to an on-site nursery in another huge shift toward a more equal future of the Olympic Games.
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