Alongside the vital news of which World Cup football player has managed to kick their ball into the net most times, the rest of the world news is showing more and more how there is a worldwide undercurrent of disregard of, or disrespect for women and their human rights. This can be manifested in the relatively minor inconvenience of being barred from certain jobs, or from driving motor vehicles, or enforced dress codes; through the life-changing denial of rights such as equal access to education, then whether or who to marry and genital mutilation.
Western news outlets like the BBC report on the worst manifestations of cultural violations of women. They interview politicians and activists who plead that more needs to be done. They rush their cameras to the female anti-rape protest groups and to the rich and famous who add their voices and their presence to the coal-face of abuse.
More locally, where abuse of women is frowned upon, the BBC, when short of exciting news to report, has run items on overweight teenage girls, or campaigns to get girls more engaged in sport.
Yet, the BBC sees no irony whatsoever in following this with a sports roundup consisting entirely of the triumphs and woes of male football, rugby, cricket and golf tournaments and male personality trophy events such as Footballer of the Year (note the absence of the word 'male' in that title). This week, the news has reported that girls don't want to get sweaty because it's unladylike or not 'cool'. After all, when do they ever see a sweaty female role model engaging in a sporting activity on prime time TV (OK, apart from Wimbledon!)?
The message the broadcasters are sending to our own hearts and minds, when they glorify male sport and male achievement and exclude those of their female counterparts, is this: WOMEN DON'T MATTER. IF YOU ARE A WOMAN; YOU DON'T MATTER EITHER. This message is amplified around the world. Instead of challenging the segregation of sports, we turn up with our cameras, commentators and crowds to celebrate each male-glorifying event.
The successful integration of the sexes in tennis shows that there is no shortage of support for the female sections of the sport and that, given enough air time, women can be as famous and financially successful as the men. If the current soccer World Cup had scheduled women's matches alongside the men's, the fans would turn up to watch both; and would stay until their last team, male or female, had left the tournament, as they did for the London 2012 Olympics.
Summit on Women's Football. Etihad Stadium
Summit on Women's Football. Etihad Stadium
So, why am I mixing together the messages of sport and human rights? Because we are still guilty of sidelining women; of not giving them an fair slice of the cake. We send our men, not our women, to Brazil to face the scrutiny of the world on a great sporting stage. We broadcast the achievements of our men, not our women, on the sports round up on television, unless briefly reporting on the closing stages of a major women's tournament. When women reach the top of their sport, they are abused for their looks, or even just for being a success, on social media sites like Twitter. In short, there's still a plank in our own eye, while we are advising the world to remove the splinters from theirs. We're all blind to the worldwide, sometimes subtle, oppression of women.
No wonder we are still catching people at Heathrow armed with genital mutilation kits. No wonder girls are still being taken "on holiday" to be married off to strangers or operated on. No wonder girls in British schools are having their education subtly marginalised in the name of religion. Until we get our own house in order, and treat girls and women equally IN ALL AREAS OF LIFE, our moral high ground will always be a slippery slope that we will never get to the top of. This starts with our own national broadcaster, the BBC - paid for with a tax on all television sets - giving equal status to all licence fee payers, not just by lip service in general news items, but in their broadcast of all sports. They should be monitoring, by gender of teams and individuals, the air time given to sports coverage. I'm monitoring it, and to date, BBC, you fail; big time.
- end -
