Reader’s Digest26 september 2019
Considering that cycling is a sport
that women participate in and enjoy
watching, one might have expected the
Tour de France to follow suit (the Tour
features a female race, after all). Even
though Spain’s Vuelta a España bicycle
race has switched to using elegantly
dressed hosts of both sexes on the
podium, and other races have used
child mascots, the Tour has thus far
refused to change—as has its Italian
counterpart, the Giro d’Italia. Winning
cyclists are still being congratulated,
chastely kissed and helped into their
leader-jerseys by women wearing high
heels and short skirts.
By refusing to deal with its podium-
girls problem, it’s as though the Tour
de France is half-hoping that female
equality is just a weird passing craze,
and, if they ignore it long enough, it will
go away. Meanwhile, the message their
podiums send out is clear: Not only are
women mere admiring observers to
male accomplishment, female sexual
approval is part of the prize.
Never was this more obvious than
in 2013 when cyclist Peter Sagan
pinched the bottom of hostess Maja
Leye at the Tour of Flanders as she
was kissing the winner, Fabian
Cancellara. Sagan apologized but was
not punished, arguably sending out
yet another message: that such events
are a sweet shop, and women are the
literal ‘eye-candy’, the human
bonbons, that ‘naughty’ men get to
help themselves to.
There are arguments in favour‘ring-card girls’, spuriously arguing
that the women are “doing something”.
Really? Something a male compere, a
digital display or even a blackboard
couldn’t do?
By contrast, the Professional Darts
Corporation (hardly a bastion
of women’s liberation) announced it
was getting rid of ‘walk-on girls’—
the strange practice of hostesses
walking players to the stage, as though
they were helpless, beer-swilling
toddlers, incapable of finding their
way to the dartboard.
Moreover, Formula 1 racing (a
male-dominated enclave if ever there
was one) decided that ‘grid girls’would no longer appear at the tracks,
because: “This custom does not
resonate with our brand values and
clearly is at odds with modern-day
societal norms.”
That was quite a statement (and a
move) from a sport long associated
with playboy types shaking up bottles
of exploding champagne (spot the
phallic imagery), watched adoringly
by gasping beauties.IF SOME EVENTS
ARE FELT TO BE TOO
MALE-DOMINATED,
WHY NOT FEATURE
MORE WOMEN IN
OFFICIAL CAPACITIES?