to move up and down
Remember how Japan’s women’s soccer team won the World Cup last year? Well, apparently it wasn’t good enough for them to fly first class with the men’s team to the Olympics this week.
The women’s team was assigned seats in premium economy for the 13-hour flight to Paris while the nation’s under-23 men’s team was up front on the same flight.
“It should have been the other way around,” 2011 FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year Homare Sawa told Japanese media after arriving in the French capital. “Even just in terms of age we are senior.”
The Japan Football Association said the men fly business class to the Olympics because they are professionals.
New idea or totally sexist?
The CBC is planning some counter-programming for female non-hockey fans as the Stanley Cup final begins next week, but faced a backlash on Twitter as a slew of posts denounced the idea as sexist.
Viewers can go online to listen to an alternate commentary from Lena Sutherland and Jules Mancuso, who run WhileTheMenWatch.com. They describe their site as a sports talk show for women, “Sex and the City” meets ESPN, with banter “from a woman’s point of view.”
“One afternoon while (our husbands) were both watching the same game on TV Jules and I were on the phone and we started just making comments to each other like, ’Did you see that guy’s hair?’ and ’What’s going on with that coach wearing the suit four sizes too big for him?”’ said Sutherland of their web show’s inspiration.
“And we kind of thought, ’Wow, this is funny, wouldn’t it be great if we could tune into an alternative version of the commentary from a female perspective?’ And that was kind of where we got the idea.”
Not everyone was happy with CBC’s decision.
“Seriously #CBC? While the Men Watch? I’m a serious sports fan and can go toe to toe with any male fan. Thanks for the patronizing insult,” wrote Laurie Kempton.
