When Islamic extremists and feminists agree on a principle, run for cover. In this case, both feminists and a Kuwaiti politician both decried the provocative display of the female body in regards to the same event: the Olympics.
In Kuwait, the conservative member of parliament Waleed al-Tabtabai complained about the obscene display of women’s bodies during televised coverage of women’s beach volleyball, diving and synchronized swimming at the Olympics in Sydney, Australia. “A number of competitions, especially those for women,” al-Tabtabai complained, “include indecent displays which require that television should stop showing them to viewers. … Showing such competitions cannot be accepted as sports because they only reflect Western standards which do not provide a woman’s body with the sanctity, honor and protection that Islam does.”
This is one of only several causes al-Tabtabai has taken up — in 1997 at his initiative Kuwait banned music concerts where both men and women were allowed to attend.
Al-Tabtabai was joined in his criticism of the sexualization of women in sports by feminists angry over photographs of some female athletes. An especially sore spot was hit with the publication of a picture of U.S. Olympic swimmer Jenny Thompson. Thompson posed on a beach for the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing a swimsuit bottom, but nothing on top — covering her breasts with her fists.
Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation of Long Island, New York, told Newhouse News Service that “any exposure in a sports magazine that minimizes athletic achievement and skill and emphasizes the female athlete as a sex object is insulting and degrading.”
Olympic swimmer Ashley Tappin, who appeared in a provocative pose for the September issue of Maxim magazine said such criticism was “a bunch of bull. We’re healthy. We’re fit. And we’re not just cute; we do good things with our bodies. They are functional. Why not show them off?”
Some of the feminist critics don’t get out much since they seem to think semi-nude athlete photos is an exclusively female phenomenon. Mary Jo Kane, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, told Newhouse, “All I am asking for is equal treatment. When Tiger Woods is on the cover of Sports Illustrated naked, holding a golf ball with the Nike swoosh in front of his genitals, I’ll be quiet.”
To my knowledge no serious male or female golf professional has been photographed semi-nude with or without golf balls — that sport takes itself a bit too seriously for such a photo. On the other hand, plenty of men from bicyclists to swimmers to (remember the poster of Mark Spitz clad only in a barely there Speedo and his gold medals?) to track and field athletes have been featured in semi-nude photos. In fact as a recent Sports Illustrated story noted, so many athletes have done the nude photo shoot that the whole genre is quickly becoming a dull cliche, since it’s no longer shocking.
In fact, despite the feminists attempt to ghettoize women, the bottom line is that sports coverage has always tended to sexualize athletes of all sexes. If Tappin and Thompson want to show off their bodies as Spitz and other males athletes have done, more power to them. The Kuwaiti politicians and radical feminists should mind their own business.
Source:
‘Olympics are too sexy’. The BBC, September 21, 2000.
Sex and the Olympics. Mark O’Keefe, Newhouse News Service, September 16, 2000.