It may be the best World Cup ever, but is it also the most sexist?
Female football fans in Brazil have been reduced to eye candy by salivating broadcasters. Matt Gaw wonders why no one is outraged
IT is the showpiece for the world’s greatest football talent and celebrates the game’s global family. Although the jury is still out on whether Brazil 2014 is the best World Cup in history — the tournament has dripped goals, stellar performances and, of course, delicious scandal — it is already quite clear how women are viewed at the sport’s highest level.
Because, from the first whistle of the opening games to the penalty-laced drama of the knockout rounds, female fans have been reduced to eye candy — a way for broadcasters to break the tension and keep temperatures and pulses high during cooling-off breaks.
The “women of the World Cup”, as they have become collectively known on Twitter, are in some cases as much a topic of conversation as the games they have come to watch. During the Colombia v Uruguay game, a photo of one nameless blonde even began trending after cameras switched from the action on the Maracana pitch to linger on her.
As 116 million Mexicans held their heads in their hands after a cruel last-minute defeat by the Dutch, the Twittersphere seemed to be lamenting not the departure of an exciting football nation from the tournament, but the absence of Mexican women from future coverage.
But if the sheer number of images of female fans broadcast throughout the World Cup is a talking point, the online conversation has been decidedly boorish — limited to congratulating the “camera guy” for spotting “hot women”.
Yes, there have been the odd complaint that the shots seem cynically staged or that they “detract from the game”, but there has been virtually no discussion about the larger issue of sexism.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. After all, soccer has got form. Fifa president Sepp Blatter infamously suggested in 2004 that female players could wear “tighter shorts” to boost the profile of their game. Then, more recently, English Premier League supremo Richard Scudamore apologised for the sexist content of leaked e-mails. It was an “error of judgment that I will not make again”, he said.
At almost every level of soccer it seems that women are objectified. Just last week, Helena Costa, the first woman to coach a French professional men’s side, stepped down after she claimed she had been sidelined by male colleagues.
Costa, nicknamed “Mourinho in a skirt” in her home country of Portugal, cited a “total lack of respect” as one of the reasons for her resignation from second-division Clermont Foot 63.
Club president Claude Michy’s reaction? “She’s a woman, so it could be down to any number of things . . . it’s an astonishing, irrational and incomprehensible decision.”
In words that would prob- ably resonate with the “women of the World Cup”, Costa claimed she had no power or control and was expected to be nothing more than “the face of the club”.
Of course, in every profession there will be individuals who say disappointing things, but it is a thing of sadness that the coverage of the World Cup — arguably the most prominent sporting event next to the Olympics — continues to re- peat a reductive and sexist portrayal of women. After all, if the caricature of women is accepted so readily, what does it say about men? Tolerating or even revelling in these images not only belittles women, but it reduces men to the level of grubby thigh-rubbers.
Admittedly, the World Cup is not the only sporting event with a fascination for the attractive female fan. Furthermore, it could also be argued that the objectification of women during the tournament is small potatoes compared with the social discord and inequality that was the initial backdrop to Brazil 2014. But if the World Cup really is about togetherness and creating a “football family”, as Fifa would have us believe, there needs to be a concerted effort to blow the whistle on sexism throughout the game. — © The Daily Telegraph, London