In this day of extreme political correctness and the whole #metoo movement, I was wondering if there a bit of a double standard going on?
Don’t get me wrong there have been many well documented examples of situations that had to be corrected but during Wimbledon there were two specific situations where women made comments about males that would have been frowned upon had roles been reversed.
One situation involving a media woman in a media conference was laughed through and the other involving a woman player never gained traction. I have no doubt if the shoe had been on the other foot there would have been quite an outcry.
Here is the transcript from the media conference with Roger Federer with the questions from the media woman:
Q. You look even more handsome than last year.
ROGER FEDERER: Okay, thank you (smiling).
Q. How do you feel?
ROGER FEDERER: I feel great now (laughter). I feel red.
What if it had been a male media person saying to a woman player “You look even more beautiful than last year”? What sort of reaction do you think that might have generated?
What I think was probably a worse situation was this Tweet put out by Eugenie Bouchard:
Genie Bouchard Verified account @geniebouchard Jul 4
One of the ballboys on my court today had his fly unzipped. Every time he gave me balls to serve I couldn’t help staring at it #wimbledon
Why has more not been made of this rude, distasteful Tweet?
Then there was the follow up Tweet from Bouchard.
Genie Bouchard Verified account @geniebouchard Jul 4
I kept wondering if I should tell him lol. Do you think I should have?
Firstly, she could have said something to the Chair Umpire who could have let a linesman know to pass it on and she secondly, she could have avoided Tweeting about it.
I am not for one minute saying men should get away with anything similar, definitely not, but why have such comments been seen as amusing or, dare I say, innocent coming for women?
Double standards?
