12/21/24
July 25, 2012
Olympic Sexism: Men Fly First Class, Women Fly Coach:
The Japanese women’s soccer team and the Australian women’s soccer and basketball teams were relegated to economy while their male counterparts flew business class. This is despite the fact that the women’s teams are ranked higher and have played better in the past.
A SMH story on the Australian example provides more background, including this:
The Age has been told that the men's basketball team has a written agreement with Basketball Australia that members will be flown business class for any flight over three hours. It is understood the women have no such arrangement. Opals captain Lauren Jackson travelled first class to London, but only because she is a Qantas "ambassador".So, the Australian Olympic Committee subsidises economy travel for the national sporting governing bodies, and the governing bodies have side-agreements with the men's teams to provide upgrades, which, alas, reflects the disparity in overall funding, regardless of world ranking.
It just looks crass -- and is pretty crass -- when the Olympics comes along.
posted by etagloh at 07:37 PM on July 25, 2012
Women are pretty much second-class citizens in Japan, so I can understand how that happened.
The Aussie one is confusing.
posted by Bonkers at 10:06 PM on July 25, 2012
Apparently the men's and women's basketball teams were given a fixed budget each, and they decided to spend it differently (so says a report in the papers in Oz last week). The men already had the agreement. Our women's soccer team didn't qualify for London, so that's probably a typo, so I think the report probably meant hockey.
I'm not sure how the total costs panned out, but you'd think with all the costs of preparation, public sports funding, AIS etc for both basketball and hockey, they could have gone business.
If I was the CEO of QANTAS, I would have thought a bit of sponsorship across the whole Olympic team wouldn't have gone astray. But then the QANTAS CEO is a dipshit, and so are members of the Australian Olympic Committee. I don't think any of them remember ever flying economy or queuing for check in.
posted by owlhouse at 11:20 PM on July 25, 2012
Our women's soccer team didn't qualify for London, so that's probably a typo, so I think the report probably meant hockey.
Nor did the men: the SMH report looked more broadly at the Socceroos and Matildas' travel arrangements, where most of the women play at home, and the men play overseas.
The spiel about the Olympics is that countries send a single team, with no differentiation between sport, gender and fame; in practice, we know that's bullshit, and that the elite pros will not be bunking up in the village or flying economy. It would be nice if the individual governing bodies could, once every four years, have an opt-out on the standard terms, and it looks as though the Aussie basketball federation is heading that way.
If I was the CEO of QANTAS, I would have thought a bit of sponsorship across the whole Olympic team wouldn't have gone astray.
Though it probably runs into the exclusive branding rights that surround the Games. If you're an Aussie competitor, I don't think you're allowed to say you're from the Gold Coast for the next three weeks.
posted by etagloh at 11:58 PM on July 25, 2012
Yeah, I figured that. But he's still a dipshit anyway.
A few years ago the IOC tried to get one of our local football clubs (Sydney Olympic) to stop using the name. As the club was originally founded by the Greek community, they had a good laugh at the IOC and considered counter-suing to see what would happen with 2,800 years of history on their side.
They're still called Olympic.
posted by owlhouse at 01:01 AM on July 26, 2012
Wow...