The Olympics are almost over, and as could be predicted, the media is all in a frenzy to capture the zeitgeist of this year’s games using overarching and unfounded theories.
The theme that’s trending the most heavily today, from what I see on Facebook, is the way that female Olympians have been represented in American media, and what it means for the progress of women.
As much as I hate to be a fucking feminist or whatever—I don’t hate it at all, in fact, I fucking love it—there’s a lot of truth in various cries of sexism and misogyny in the coverage I’ve seen. Let’s just say that if this were England in the 1500s, sexism was the same as Tyndales bible, and Bob Costas was Thomas More, this comparison makes no sense except I hate Bob Costas.
I expected that outlets like Fox News, with their big tittied anchors, would infuriate me. Ten days into watching the flagrant Hunger-Games-style propaganda that NBC has been spouting in their playback coverage, I almost exclusively expect them to fuck up. The other night I actually heard a commentator on the network say “it’s rare for the Chinese to be good at archery because they have slitty eyes.” Not. But they did say, “it’s rare for the Chinese to make a mistake,” which isn’t overtly offensive, but implies that an entire nation of 2 billion people operates as a single being.
What I didn’t expect was the atrocious and offensive coverage seen in The New York Times, which is publishing opinion pieces in the sports section like they’re news articles. First, came the poorly researched—and argued—articles on Le Shiwen. And, this past weekend, they published this completely misogynistic—and egregiously erroneous—piece about Lolo Jones, and how she uses her sexuality to get attention in the media.
It’s incredibly disappointing that the newspaper I respect the most in the world published this article rather than some right wing wacakadoo Christian newspaper, or fringe Men’s Health site.
After learning that Jones placed not dead last, but 4th in the finals of 100m hurdles—a girl doesn’t get there unless she’s extraordinary, even if she doesn’t win a medal—and that she holds the American record in the event, the sneering tones in the article are almost more shocking than if the author had posted a picture of her naked, and said he wanted to hate fuck her with their fingers.
Read it for yourself, and if you’re so inclined, I’d love to hear what you think.
(And as a footnote, watch her response to it on The Today Show, as well as the Slate response to the profile, which after their killer Olympics coverage, might be my new favorite magazine.)
