Twerking request continues disturbing trend
The head of a major Canadian women’s sports organization thinks a DJ continued a disturbing trend by asking soccer star Ada Hegerberg to twerk after receiving an international award.
Allison SandmeyerGraves, the CEO of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity, was disappointed that French DJ Martin Solveig made the request to Hegerberg after the Norwegian became the first woman to win the Ballon d’Or. The award for top soccer player in the world added recognition for women for the first time on Monday in Paris.
“I think the message that women get everywhere in society, but very much in sport, very much where bodies are on display, is that what your body looks like is more important than what your body can do,” SandmeyerGraves said.
“She just reached the highest pinnacle of accomplishment in a sporting career, and was reduced to just what her body looks like. And with no acknowledgment of her strength and power and skill and strategic mind, and all of those sorts of things that could be highlighted in the moment.
“Research shows that women get four per cent of mainstream media coverage in an Olympic year. Women just aren’t visible on our TVs and in our print media, and when they do show up, this is so often how they get presented.
“This does just keep happening over and over and over again, and it really speaks to just how normalized it is for people to view women through this lens.”
Solveig apologized for the question, tweeting, “I didn’t know that this could be seen as such an offence,” and adding: “This was a joke, probably a bad one.”
Sandmeyer- Graves says she didn’t see the humour.
“How often do women need to forgive this sort of thing ? No, actually, it wasn’t funny. And it had serious consequences,” she said.
Tennis star Andy Murray also was critical of Solveig.
“Another example of the ridiculous sexism that still exists in sport,” Murray wrote on Instagram.
The twerk request was similar to a question posed to Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard at the Australian Open in 2015.
A male presenter conducting an interview with Bouchard at the Grand Slam tournament asked Bouchard to “give us a twirl.”
Uncomfortably, the thenNo. 7-ranked player twirled. Then she laughed and buried her face in her hands.
“It was very unexpected,” Bouchard said afterward. “I don’t know, an old guy asking you to twirl. It was funny.”