OPINION> Commentary
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OPINION> Commentary
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Sexist gawking gets worse at Wimbledon
By Marina Hyde (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-27 07:40 Why doesn't the All England Club - also known as Wimbledon - market itself as "the birthplace of the upskirt"? You know the upskirt: it's that staple of modern paparazzi photography that teeters over into rogue, unsolicited gynecology, and though it is usually deployed on the likes of Britney Spears as she leaves a nightclub/psychiatric hospital, it had a very early outing at the 1949 Wimbledon championships. That year, the American women's star Gertrude "Gorgeous Gussie" Moran wore a dress short enough that her frilly lace knickers protruded beneath it, and the photographers literally lay on the ground at the back of the court so they could get the raciest shots. Ah, austerity years fun - you took it where you could. Yet now that the opportunities to get a look at a woman's knickers are not exactly limited, the hope always lingers that professional athletes could be excluded from the desperate trouser-rubbing of yesteryear.
Consider the hope extinguished, for this year at least. It actually seems like the situation is getting worse, with women players struggling to get a mention if they don't conform to some picture editor's exacting ass standards. Never mind the talent round, here's the swimsuit contest. On Monday, the London Daily Telegraph explained that "to regard the top seeds in the women's draw as no more than eye candy is to do them a great disservice". You think? But readers learned that while all the men on the tour dine happily with each other after noble contest, "women are different". And yet all the same, apparently. "Women bear grudges." And the headlines: "Serbs serving up sexy tennis" "Maria's pants of a lifetime" (what?). "New balls, please!" is somehow the tragi-cheesiest of them all. Only in this climate could it be written - as it was at the French Open - that the American Ashley Harkleroad had "upstaged" Serena Williams because she had decided to pose for Play Boy. Williams had just crushed her in two sets, but whatever. Harkleroad's first-round draw here is Amelie Mauresmo, in a match swiftly billed by some commentators as the clash between the lesbian and the Playboy model. More than any other sport, tennis attracts this kind of thing - and perhaps most disturbingly the LTA, the tennis governing body in the UK, are buying right into it. They recently launched their Think Pink campaign, a new initiative "to raise awareness of women in tennis, and sport in general". A couple of weeks ago they got lots of promising 9 to 11-year-old girl players to dress up in pink clothes and demonstrate their skills. "We're looking to bring out the glamorous side of the game," explained Think Pink ambassador Claire Curren, "and really tap into what appeals to girls growing up these days." Wait: that's the big idea? To wear baby pink and emphasize "the glamorous side" of tennis? Why, we'll be producing grand slam champions inside a decade. It's a little-known fact that as ambitious twins, Venus and Serena Williams raised their game by repeatedly asking themselves, "What would Malibu Stacy do?" Others vehemently dispute the LTA's assertion that "we have to sell women's tennis in a different way to men's tennis". Blogger Diana Elayne Dees fumed: "(Think Pink) tells girls - once again - that they are not tough enough to really compete; it tells them that women's sports are somehow different from men's and it tells them 'Don't worry, you'll still be "feminine", even if you play this sweaty sport'." Still, there are plenty who'll be on hand to defeminize them - dehumanize them if necessary. Former pro Justin Gimelstob, a Sports Illustrated writer these days, was last week moved to discuss Anna Kournikova with the Washington Post. He wouldn't touch her, he explained, but "I wouldn't mind having my younger brother, who's kind of a stud, nail her and reap the benefits of that". Speaking of a mixed doubles event at which he'll face Kournikova, he declared: "She's going to be serving 65 kph and I'm just going to be plugging it down her throat." He wouldn't aim at her head, he added. "I'm going to just serve it right into the body, about 128, right into the midriff." There are those who say that some female players court this stuff by doing lucrative ad campaigns. But so do the guys. Professional male sports are full of manscaped ad-whores who are happy to look sultry if some high-end watchmaker or underwear designer is paying. But when they are on the field, they get to do their job without having humpy headlines slapped above their photo. Women deserve the same. The Guardian (China Daily 06/27/2008 page9) |
