The Tab and Sexism

It's often telling which societal attitudes are rampant within mainstream culture when you analyse a source of journalism that's comprised of contributions by anyone who decides to write an article. The Tab is an example of these semi-journalistic publications where students write articles that they think would appeal to the student demographic. It's therefore incredibly problematic when you discover their common attitudes towards such serious issues as sexism. Time and time again I'm witnessing a normally left wing biased student media revolving around the radical feminist rhetoric that everything must be sexist if it conforms to a weakly defined narrative. To prove my point let's have a look at The Tab's coverage for the first week of the Olympics. This ladies and gentleman is the state of student journalism:
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http://thetab.com/uk/2016/08/12/literally-just-list-sexist-things-happened-olympics-14251?utm_source=studentxpost&utm_medium=babe&utm_campaign=xpost
http://thetab.com/uk/2016/08/10/congrats-girl-fiance-former-miss-california-scoops-25th-gold-medal-13873?utm_source=professionalxpost&utm_medium=babe&utm_campaign=xpost
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We begin with some factual and sophisticated insights into the inner workings of the Olympic Games. Of course everyone knows the Olympic Games are a method by the patriarchy to prove why women are inferior, and not at all to showcase the greatest athletes in the world. I always assumed women competed in the same sports as the men in the name of equality, but now The Tab has thankfully enlightened me that this is actually a system of oppression to show how superior men are. Not only do I disagree with the statement that female athletes are patronised, I'm fairly confident in saying that this scenario couldn't be further from the truth. Not only have I not heard a single patronising comment towards any female athlete at the games, but the Olympics have been a chance to showcase women's sports that are often overlooked by the much more marketable male dominated sports. I'm sure you're now going to prove my point wrong by showcasing some tenuous pieces of evidence that only buck the trend, but then again that's how left wing publications often go about their business these days.

Not surprisingly the alleged sexism starts with such a benign point. When describing the opening ceremony of course the term 'sexiest' was only used for the female participants in the opening ceremony and not the equal number of male performers, because as I'm sure feminists will happily tell you men can never be called sexy because they don't get objectified. Right? Also that quote about the opening ceremony comes from an unnamed source in The Daily Mail, a publication you're going to be criticising later. So yeah, great source work. If there was ever a way to prove how inherently sexist a global organisation is it's obviously going to be from an unnamed source. And anyway I didn't realise that celebrating athletes and having scantily clad women dancing the samba are mutually exclusive. The samba I would like to add is a cultural staple in Brazil, so just labelling that sexist without considering the context shows how narrow minded you are. The opening ceremony is allowed to highlight athletes and the local culture. I don't recall the industrial revolution having anything to do with celebrating athletes either, but the obviously sexist opening ceremony in London did just that, clearly ignoring the female athletes that according to you need special attention.

Look at all this blatant sexism. Apparently now saying that female athletes looking so incredibly comfortable they could be doing something leisurely during a competition is also sexist. You just can't make this stuff up. We'll forget that you need evidence that this comment was a direct attack on the female athlete's gender for it to actually be sexist, but then of course the more valid option would be to just ignorantly follow this author's interpretation of the remark irrespective of context. To be safe the commentators should have said they look like they're the CEO of a successful business rather than Olympic athletes. Fucking patriarchy.

Then we get into the business of the 'derogatory' attitude of comparing female athletes to their male counterparts. I didn't realise this was a derogatory comparison considering the level of male competition is higher at the Olympic Games. Even so if someone said I was almost as acrobatic as Simone Biles or as good in the water as Katie Ledecky I would be over the moon, but flip that round and suddenly it's outrageous to even suggest that female competition might be inferior to the corresponding male discipline. Let's be realistic here, Michael Phelps is an American legend. Katie Ledecky is not. Just because the author might know how much of a legend Ledecky is doesn't mean the average viewer does. That doesn't make the commentators instantly sexist. And anyway, comparisons are made in any sport. I've heard Michael Phelps being compared to a fish. Is treating men as inhuman organisms sexist as well? Say Michael Phelps was compared to swimming like a woman. Surely that would also be sexist against women despite its complementary nature because Phelps himself is not 'fully credited'. Are you starting to see how stupid this logic is now? Maybe we shouldn't be segregating sports into gender based competition so we can finally credit these athletes without resorting to comparisons. Amazingly that's not even the most bizarre point in this paragraph. Apparently male coaches can no longer be held responsible for the success of female athletes under their tutelage. Of course Shane Tusup is responsible for Hosszu's record breaking performance, because HE'S HER COACH. When a football team wins a tournament or the league it's the manager that's seen to have masterminded their success. How is this any different? Again, just feelings over facts.

Admittedly the Chicago Tribune headline is pretty disrespectful towards an Olympic medalist, although with the amount of medals America win it must be a slow news day to include that accomplishment. However this still isn't proof of sexism, as this is a trend that happens to the majority of obscure athletes with more famous connections irrespective of gender. We've seen the more marketable athletes dominate the headlines here in Britain, like Bradley Wiggins, Laura Trott, and Tom Daley being given preferential treatment over their sporting partners. Nobody cares how many Olympics their compatriots have been at or how good they are, only how they can get people to view their paper, even if that does mean shitting all over another athlete in favour of their partners. So really it's of no surprise that a CHICAGO BASED NEWSPAPER is advocating a CHICAGO BASED SPORTS STAR over another athlete from Alaska, which is famously not anywhere near Chicago. That's not sexism, it's appealing to a demographic. That's how the media works, but it certainly doesn't instantly make this practice sexist because it happened once to a woman.

Ah The Sun, only marginally more credible than The Tab. I don't know what coverage the author of this post was expecting from a tabloid, but as always with sexism issues it's one that only female athletes face. Anyway, is this article necessarily a bad thing? It's all very well presenting this piece of evidence and blindly screaming 'sexist' without any justification, but there's obviously a demand for these exploitative articles, just like there's a demand for shit articles on your website. The article in question here is so harmful to women that it's actually written by one. How oppressive. Then we start with the tenuous bullshit again. The fact that giving birth, which I'm repeatedly told is one of the most toiling experiences possible, might have an effect on an athletic performance is inconceivable to feminists, which is just laughable. How about actually commenting on sexism in sporting events when you've actually looked into the context of the situation, and not just crying foul play in the direction of anything vaguely controversial that fits into your narrow minded narrative?

Oh no a 'catfight', 'dancing on the beach', not addressing the athletes correctly. And they say modern feminism isn't tackling real women's issues. These instances are just plain horrific and not trivial in any way. Even more shocking is the revelation that athletes are judged on their image. Of course The Tab is quite happy to conclude that this body shaming only happens to female athletes, and of course like usual despite no evidence we should all conclude that this is despicable behaviour based on nothing but their gender.

If there was any evidence needed that modern feminist bullshit is smearing its way into popular culture then it's exemplified by this shitstain of an article. All we have here is a list of trivial issues that are then weakly linked to this idea of inherent oppression of a single gender, relying on narrative over factual evidence, blindly screaming 'sexism' whenever women are treated even slightly differently. This article is happy to forget about factual evidence and context, because the narrative is more important, and the idea that if something can possibly be conceived as sexist it therefore is. It's this stupid attitude that if there is an inequality there has to be inequity, and whinging about that inequity without any logical reasoning is the only solution. My question is who is this attitude helping? If the views of this article ever become widely accepted then journalists and broadcasters will be finding their language and subject matter being policed, male athletes will be treated as sexists simply for performing better than their female colleagues, and female athletes are treated like special snowflakes that can't be criticised by anyone for the fear of this 'sexism'. This article could have shone a light on real women's issues that still occur in sports today, such as many female athletes not even being allowed to compete by their own government. Those are the sorts of gender issues that do deserve attention, yet they're being eclipsed by this utter self centred bullshit. How about just watching the fucking Olympics and stop looking to be oppressed for the sake of this narrow minded and moronic article?