Monday, May 18, 2009

Gender Bias and a Large Jameson.

By

Tony Philpott

I hate sports.  All sports. Football especially. I'd rather stir-fry my own toe nail clippings and use them as croutons than sit through a match. They could be holding the World Cup final in my back garden and I wouldn't bother to open the curtains to have a look. I don’t understand the rules, the moves or the objectives of the game with two halves. I am bemused by the vast amount of air time and printer’s ink given to a sport overpopulated with prima donnas and prima dunphys.

I do understand that sport is a mass entertainment – but the mass is mostly male. I have the proper masculine apportionment of testosterone, an unfashionably-hairy chest and I never fail to leave the toilet seat up. All the proper male attributes. Yet I long to turn on the telly without hearing the wail of Formula One cars, the thock thock of tennis balls, the whack of golf clubs and the incomprehensible GAA commentary delivered by a far-too-excited Micheal O’Muirehurtaig as yet another sliotar goes over the bar. I yearn for sports-free television, but I can’t have it.

And it’s all the fault of the Feminists. Really. They’re to blame for all the sports on television.

The eternal vigilance of radical feminism knows no equal – particularly those with access to the media. Sexual stereotyping in cinema? - they're on the case with irate editorials and demands for studio time with Vincent Browne.  Women priests? - an inflamed petition to the Pope signed in the liquefied estrogen of ten thousand females. No cause too large - no issue too small. The feminists made “Mrs” a bad word, they made the motives of a bloke holding a door open for a woman appear to be those of a sexual predator.

But where were they when it came to football on television?  They missed football - didn't they?  Wasn’t on their agenda.

They could have easily had it banned under "Gender bias in the media" or “Equal time for Feminine Expression” - either way, they could have gotten a grant from Justice, Equality and Law Reform and, quicker than the backpedalling of the Minister for Finance, they could have financed a campaign for a mandated allotment of equal television time between The World Cup and the International Women's Crocheting finals. But they missed their chance.

And, precisely because of this complete lack of focus on the part of Irish Radical Feminism I cannot sip a Jameson in the Stag’s Head on a Saturday afternoon without having total strangers opening conversations with me with the words "Do you think Rodrigo will transfer?" or "Wadja tink o'de match?".

Do you have any idea of the reaction of a fellow male when you tell him that you don’t have any idea what match or player he’s talking about?  He moves two bar-stools away and makes flaccid-wrist gestures to other customers while pointing at you.

The very assumption that I watch football matches makes me a victim of sexual stereotyping. But I don’t hear any feminists taking up my cause.  I don't have breasts, you see - at least not the kind capable of lactation, therefore the plights and prejudices endured by a resoundingly heterosexual male matter not a jot to organised feminism.

When forced to endure incessant yak about Keano, Gigsi, Bestie and Beckham  -  when every channel on my TV is constantly showing football matches, football highlights or football pundits talking about football - when some barely articulate mutant with a number on his back gets a billion quid for leaving Galasmasherai and joining Totenham Wednesday - it is then that I seriously consider the merits of getting silicone implants, slipping on pair of knickers, crocheting a doily and lodging a protest with the Equal Rights Commission.

Irish Feminism has failed me. There is far too much sport on television, I feel aggrieved, deprived and victimised -  I want answers - from Nell McCafferty, from Mary Harney and that political-commentator-woman with the pert breasts on RTE.

Yours. Tony (knit one, purl one) Philpott.

PS

If there isn't a political-commentator-female with pert breasts on RTE could they please get one?

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