Peter Sagan, podium girls and objectification.
When I saw a picture in this morning’s paper [31 March 2013] of cyclist Peter Sagan grabbing a get hold offul of the bum cheek of a ‘podium girl’ while waiting to be submited his second- step to the fore loot at the Tour of Flanders, the only if thing that surprised me was how unsurprised I felt.
We’re all aw are of the icky custom of young, slim, large-breasted, long-haired (and usually white) wo manpower being used as attractdow dressing to celebrate the achievements of male athletes, especially in motorsport. So it kind of felt like only a affair of time before someone took the treating of women as decorative objects in sport to its logical conclusion.
Because if you reduce a person to an object, with no feelings, thoughts or autonomy of their own, then why would you see anything do by with publicly grabbing them?
I doubt Sagan is the first athlete to let his hand wander o'er the deliberately appealing flesh of a young woman in hotpants paid to fawn over him, besides it numbers like he’s the first who got caught doing it on camera.
Of course the inevitable attempts to make light of Sagan’s actions followed, with puns a-plenty well-nigh his ’cheeky gesture’.
Apparently the fame and fortune of the maestro athlete does make a difference when it comes to applying the law – if Sagan was an might worker who had been PHOTOGRAPHED molesting a female colleague, he’d be suspended for sexual torment so fast his luff would spin. Possibly dismissed on the spot, possibly even arrested.
But because it took place in that crazy, hazy world of sport where women are zero but window dressing and men’s actions, opinions and compulsions are respected regardless of whether they’re domestic abusers, rapists or murderers, so far we’ve only seen a social media firestorm and no affright of legal action.
Hearteningly, most of the responses – from both men and women – have criticised Sagan for his actions, although in that location have been a few depressing defences.
And even those who motion the whole tradition of ‘podium girls’ have managed to do so without placing the blame at the feet of the girls themselves.
But it’s salve concerning that an act of sexual assault that took place in front of the world’s eyes has not attracted a whiff of police attention.
Is this because harassment of women within male-dominated sports is seen as a) not a ‘real’ problem, dependable ‘laddish banter’, or b) admittedly objectionable, but unruffled something women should notwithstanding expect?
I suspect a bit of both.
I’ve had a trivial bit of experience with real-life podium girls, although not in a setting anywhere arise as glamorous as the circles Peter Sagan moves in. But I’ve been at competitions at major UK motor racing circuits and watched as the podium girls were trotted out at the end of the races, and more than simply finding it sexist and obnoxious (which it is), I also represent the whole tradition rattling embarrassing. What’s ‘glamorous’ about standing shivering, covered in fake tan, squeezed into hotpants one size too small so your buttocks are hanging out, in six-inch heels that wouldn’t intent out of place in Spearmint Rhino, in the inwardness of the tarmac? And that’s not slut-shaming – I celebrate, and regularly demonstrate, a woman’s right to dress however the jazz she wants, and by that I mean as sexually charged (or not) as she wants.
But we can’t deny that clothing speaks to magnate structures, and when you’re the scantily clad one amongst a grouping of 30 fully-dressed men (plus a few of us minimum women), it’s fair to say you’re not approaching from a level playing field. The podium girls were in that respect to be looked at, to provide ‘eye candy’, to be visually winning and sexually appealing.
I was there in jeans, a t tog and a much-needed hoodie (I’ve never been to a race track when it was anything near actual hotpants weather) – it didn’t matter what I looked like, because I was there to report on the race. If I was judged at all, it would be on my writing. Whereas we all knew what the girls were being judged on.
A man on my team do dismissive comments about ‘those tarts over there’, but not because he was objecting to the sexism of the tradition – rather he thought they were not sufficiently attractive, and remarked that you get a more sophisticated partition of podium girl at Silverstone. So these girls couldn’t win – they were there for nothing but their appearances, but even those were found to be wanting. And so goes the message to women – remember to look ever sexually available, even a little bit ‘slutty’, but never, god forbid, must you look ‘cheap’.
Still, as I watched the two girls finish up, get back into more favourable looking clothes and drive away, I reflected that it didn’t look like too tough a job.
It was certainly a briefer day’s work than my 8 hours spent inhaling accelerator pedal fumes – not that I was complaining, as I really really enjoyed reporting on the races, but if you wanted a way of making easy money without having to know anything about motorsport, theirs was certainly the job you’d pick over mine. If I had the height, bustline, waistline, backside, fell tone, hair length and appropriate wardrobe to garment the podium girl template, would I be picking the podium over the pit wall myself? Who knows – it’s too whopping an ‘if’.
It’s depressing, though, that this is how women’s roles are still divided. Either you’re ‘useful’ - like I was that day – or you’re ‘decorative’, like podium girls. You’re not allowed to be both, because that might muddy the waters.
And whichever side of the coin you choose, you’ll be punished for it.
Ugly girls have to be clever and funny because why else would men succumb them any attention, right? And pretty girls don’t have to bother being anything but, because their worth is only skin deep, isn’t it?
In this sense Peter Sagan’s actions have been helpful, if only because they spurred on commentators to point out “the absurdity in still having podium girls in 2013″.
Much like the 89,000 supporters of the No More Page 3 campaign, people are finally access out of the woodwork to point out how dated, cringeworthy and insulting it is to still treat women like ‘dolly birds’ in an era where we pay endless lip service to the notion of sexual equality.
And it’s great that sports writers have used this opportunity to challenge the sexist tradition – sluggishness Seaton has a great piece in today’s Guardian, asking ”Does professional cycling really need to award winners kisses from “trophy” females? The whole spectacle is unbecoming – not just bodacious and embarrassing, but retrograde and demeaning.”
It’s just a dishonor that a woman had to be assaulted for the conversation to happen.
Materials taken from Womens Views on News
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