Journalism and cycling

Chuchote

nee wrote: »

That article really pissed me off. She shows a very basic misunderstanding of feminism and why women's sport us the way it is.
(snip)
The rest was fine.

“So, I’m not a staunch feminist, I’m more of an ‘equalist’."

Sweet suffering mother of the divine Jesus give me patience.

Arcade_Tryer

nee wrote: »

Women train just as hard as the men for a fraction (if any) if the reward.

One would hope the only reason women don't receive the same monetary reward as men is because they don't generate the same revenue streams.

Chuchote

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

One would hope the only reason women don't receive the same monetary reward as men is because they don't generate the same revenue streams.

Yeah, that model would be good for sport.

Arcade_Tryer

Chuchote wrote: »

Yeah, that model would be good for sport.

It's the best model for professional sport. And the fairest.

eeeee

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

One would hope the only reason women don't receive the same monetary reward as men is because they don't generate the same revenue streams.

Still not justified in my opinion. Same training and effort, unequally rewarded. And the reason women's sport doesn't generate the same revenue streams is deliberate and systematic sexism and misogyny over generations because.....
But yeah no it's just the advertising :rolleyes:

I'll never forget when I started racing, a race selling itself with "Equal prize money for women and men". We raced the same course, same distance, it blew my mind that this wasn't always the case, and so much so it was noteworthy! It's been a very depressing realisation just how unequal it is at a small, local level despite the best efforts of a few.

Thank fcuk for track, it's a level playing field in more ways than one. Always equal prize money there. One of the many, many reasons to love it!

eeeee

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

It's the best model for professional sport. And the fairest.

Errrr....sure it is:rolleyes:

Arcade_Tryer

nee wrote: »

Still not justified in my opinion. Same training and effort, unequally rewarded.

Training and effort is irrelevant in terms of monetary reward though in professional sport. I'm sure there are footballers of both sexes who train harder and put more effort into their profession than Ronaldo and Messi, but get paid a fraction of what they do respectively.

And the reason women's sport doesn't generate the same revenue streams is deliberate and systematic sexism and misogyny over generations because....

That's an interesting theory, but very hard to prove. Viewer numbers, subscriptions and sports attendances are far easier to quantify.

nee wrote: »

Errrr....sure it is:rolleyes:

Yes, it is. It's important to remember that professional sport is primarily a business, with a bottom line.

Chuchote

Reminds me of a late friend who was a typesetter; she got a job in a firm that had previously been all-male. They riz up and demanded that the union get her a lower rate, not because of sexism, of course, but because she was less experienced, they'd served seven-year apprenticeships, etc. Union said they couldn't ask for that. The management was persuaded to get a time-and-motion-study team in. The result of the study was that she worked faster, with fewer mistakes and better processing of copy.

The men didn't demand that they should therefore be paid less than her, strangely.

eeeee

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

T

That's an interesting theory, but very hard to prove. Viewer numbers, subscriptions and sports attendances are far easier to quantify.

Er no,. no it's not. Women have been systematically discriminated against, prevented from accessing education and sport for the vast majority of human history. Equality still does not exist. Sport is designed by men, for men.
The Giro, TDF etc. all happened before women even had the vote.
Contraception was illegal in this country until 1992 and we still don't have bodily autonomy in this state. It was legal to beat and rape your wife in this country in recent times. none of this is theoretical or hard to prove. To think sport operated entirely outside these few examples of systematic oppression is, frankly laughable if it wasn't so willfully ignorant. I find that viewpoint simultaneously worrying and chilling.
Historically women were barred from access to sport. Look up the history of women's football in the interwar and early post war era in the UK, women's football drew much larger crowds, was more professional and commercially lucrative. So the FA banned it :rolleyes:

It's not at all, even a tiny bit difficult to fins systematic sexism, misogyny with regards to women's sport historically, culturally and socially. And even right up to this day. As a woman who competes at national level (I've even won some medals) I can categorically tell you this happens every single day of the sporting week to one of us at least!

Parity isn't a wistful fantasy, it's a necessity. Commercialism or no commercialism. Some things are bigger than money.

Cookie_Monster

nee wrote: »

Sport is designed by men, for men.

well stay out of it then
:pac:

Chuchote

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

well stay out of it then
:pac:

Shame.

Chuchote

Another piece in The Irish Times about the danger of cycling…

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/the-life-of-a-cycling-commuter-i-am-acutely-aware-of-the-dangers-1.3205268

The life of a cycling commuter: ‘I am acutely aware of the dangers’
Chris Carpenter cycles 16,000km a year on his daily cycle to and from work
Chris Carpenter cycles further in a year than most people drive on their daily commute to work.
The 47-year-old leaves his home in Clane, Co Kildare every morning between 7.30am and 8am and cycles the 34km to his job as a website designer for The Irish Times in Dublin city centre, arriving at around 9am. In the evening, he leaves between 5.45pm and 5.55pm and arrives home at 7pm.

A little taste of general facts thrown in…

The latest Census 2016 report showed that the number of people cycling to work increased by 43 per cent on 2011, the biggest increase in commuting for any form of transport.

A bit about how he loves cycling, a bit about the Bike-to-Work scheme meaning there are many more. A bit about "risks on the road" - which isn't the journalist's interpretation of a road full of potholes, but of homicidal threats:

The greater number of cyclists has brought more risks on to the road. Carpenter has had some road-rage confrontations over the years including one with a taxi driver that involved a “999” call.

And then a fine big dollop of false equivalence:

Dublin Bus and Dublin taxis are “the worst offenders” for cutting off cyclists, he says. “Their attitude is that it is their territory”. But, he concedes, it is a “two-way thing” and cyclists have become more aggressive too as it becomes a popular sport with big groups going out on the roads.

And of course RLJs, referred to in the same tone as the "risks" of road rage:

“I am acutely aware of the dangers. It drives me crazy seeing other cyclists breaking red lights and it is predominantly people on Dublin Bikes,” he said.

==

Further, a letter to The Irish Times about traffic, from Stephen O'Connell of Newtownmountkennedy:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/rush-hour-traffic-1.3205058

A chara, – Is it just me or is everyone in a rush? I find the speed that cars are travelling is too fast. Do they not realise they will just arrive at the next traffic jam sooner?

magicbastarder

nee wrote: »

Contraception was illegal in this country until 1992 and we still don't have bodily autonomy in this state. It was legal to beat and rape your wife in this country in recent times.

I've often wondered if all the women in Ireland who were forced to leave their jobs simply because they got married (was it 1973 when this ended? ) went to court to demand compensation, how the country would cope.

Tenzor07

Interesting piece by Boardman..

Chris Boardman: riding a bike on UK roads feels too dangerous for me

LINK

ThisRegard

I do wonder how much of that is influenced, subconsciously or otherwise, by his mother's death.

greenspurs

nee wrote: »

That article really pissed me off. She shows a very basic misunderstanding of feminism and why women's sport us the way it is.
She says that women's cycling don't deserve equal status or money because it doesn't have the same history as the men's, well why the fcuk do you think that is? *massive facepalm* then it's we don't deserve the same wages cos we don't work as hard Oh ffs. Women train just as hard as the men for a fraction (if any) if the reward.

Then the whole I'm not a feminist I'm an equalist....errr that's the basic, number one founding tenet of feminism, equality, for all, not one over the other. *palm through face*. She hasn't a clue what she's talking about. I will willingly give her a few bits to read!

The rest was fine.

Thats Lydias opinion, and as she said later in the piece, shes cycling for the enjoyment and the love of cycling, if she wanted to make money she would go back to engineering.
Most womens sports arent financially viable/sustainable really, look at the WTA events, outside of the Grand Slams, there are a few dozen specatators at most of the matches.
Womens Premier League soccer, the same . A few thousand maybe to see the top teams play.
At home, Womens Camogie and Football, a couple of thousand will go to the 'big games' ....
You see its not just in Professional sports where there isnt the "interest" in womens sport , its at most of them unfortunatley , across all spectrums.
So no amount of parity, prizewise or with recognition , is going to change that.
How can it be changed ??

magicbastarder

tennis seems to be one sport where women get a significant chunk of the coverage? i'm not someone who follows tennis, but i understand the women's game is more about skill than power, which had come to have an undue influence in the mens game?

Chuchote

Most sports were played for love, not money for centuries; it's fairly recent that they became a way of making massive amounts, and put up massive prizes (though I still regret the suppression of prizes of Paris apartments in some cycle races).

It's kind of odd at times. I find women's tennis more interesting than men's, which is just pock-pock-pock-pock with the men very equally trained, for instance. I was far more inspired by the women's cycle races in the Olympics (despite the shame of the stupid road protection and the horror crash) than the men's.

RayCun

Athletics

Ask someone to name ten Irish athletes, and half of the names will be women. At an athletics meet, the women compete at the same time as the men.

Chuchote

RayCun wrote: »

Athletics

Ask someone to name ten Irish athletes, and half of the names will be women. At an athletics meet, the women compete at the same time as the men.

And the prizes?

magicbastarder

compliments from pat hickey.

RayCun

Chuchote wrote: »

And the prizes?

Same, afaik
For example, Dublin marathon prizes, the marathon majors overall prizes are the same for men and women
and any race I've ever been in, to the best of my knowledge

tomasrojo

magicbastarder wrote: »

tennis seems to be one sport where women get a significant chunk of the coverage? i'm not someone who follows tennis, but i understand the women's game is more about skill than power, which had come to have an undue influence in the mens game?

I don't know a lot about sport but I did see a documentary about Billie Jean King which detailed her hard-ball tactics in getting women's prize money to be brought closer to men's. I think it's the same now in all the majors. I think women's tennis was already very popular, which gave her considerable leverage when she threatened to boycott the US Open.

greenspurs

magicbastarder wrote: »

tennis seems to be one sport where women get a significant chunk of the coverage? i'm not someone who follows tennis, but i understand the women's game is more about skill than power, which had come to have an undue influence in the mens game?

Its about power in womens tennis now too ... The serves are getting faster all the time, and more "beating into submission" from the base line nowadays than in previous years, but a lot of skill and finesse too.
But still, not much support in the stands .....

ThisRegard

tomasrojo wrote: »

I think it's the same now in all the majors.

And where it is you then have the argument coming from the opposite end of the spectrum that women are actually getting paid more than men relative to the work they put in as their games are shorter.

tomasrojo

I think, like professional musicians, the vast bulk of the work is in the years of preparation, rather than the actual performance.

plodder

RayCun wrote: »

Athletics

Ask someone to name ten Irish athletes, and half of the names will be women. At an athletics meet, the women compete at the same time as the men.

Definitely women's athletics has closest to parity of esteem compared with any other sport. This might be because :
a) Women's athletics is longer established (similar point made in the article)
b) Women's athletics is just as watchable as men's athletics (similar point in the article)
c) There's no money in athletics, outside of the handful of super-star names (who it has to be said, are all men).

Tenzor07

Fair play to the city of Ontario!

http://isure.ca/new-driving-laws-ontario/

CramCycle

Prepares to be put against the wall and shot for following comments

greenspurs wrote: »

How can it be changed ??

Better coverage to be fair. Lets not BS here. While in days gone by it was out and out sexism, nowadays it is more historical. The money is already in alot of sports on the male side, therefore the businesses that run them plough money into the male side, therefore coverage, revenue and interest is kept up. Since this isn't there historically in the womens side of the sport, it does not seem to grow or keep pace nearly as well.
The Rugby world cup ran here was great only for the comically poor planning. They claimed to sell out really quick but they underestimated interest, and sold tickets as day passes, meaning two out of three matches a day at the beginning often did not have a capacity crowd but then they had no tickets to sell for safety (from an organisers mouth, maybe incorrect). Such a mess up would never happen in the mens sport. This said the coverage and advertising for it was great considering the relatively small size of the event.
A big push for equal coverage alone would start narrowing the gap quite quickly IMO. Interestingly, and this is my sexist comment of the day, because of the lack of interest/coverage at a publication/television level, I find many sports when looking at the womens competitions to be less cynical and far more enjoyable. I cannot watch soccer anymore at the televised level, and even coming down the ranks, the cynicism is bleeding through, although nowhere near as bad. GAA is regrettably going the same way, but again, womens GAA is far more entertaining, less f*cking about, falling over or over reacting to nothing.
Athletics would appear to be the exception in some countries, depending on which event but overall it appears to be on par.
Another unfounded sexist comment, in the sports where women are not treated any differently, the issues that I give out about do resurface more plainly, particularly talking about cynical play and doping, talking about athletics and tennis here.
Long story short, it is getting closer to what it should be but it is a long way off.

I agree with Nee about the track, I raced against her there and seen the mixing of the sexes, you would be hard pressed to keep up with the likes of Olivia even when at the top of your game in Ireland on that track.

buffalo

An interesting emphasis comparison here - two stories, one each from the Irish Times and RTE, presumably both based on the same press release about the census: