Football And Sex......ism

By Luke Edwards on Jan 26, 11 11:41 AM

There is a big debate going on about sexism in football in light of Andy Gray's stupid comments and subsequent sacking by Sky Sports, a company that only employs attractive women to read from an auto cue on Sky Sports News.

I'm going to go for the short option. Is football sexist? Yes. Will it ever change? Probably not. Should Andy Gray have been sacked? Yes, because he questioned the ability of all women to officiate in a game when there is no basis for his prejudice other than the prejudice itself.

As for the rest of the argument, football is a game played predominantly by men in a predominantly all male environment. When you put a lot of men together, a lot of the time they are going to talk about women in a macho, sexual and, yes, I suppose derogatory way if you believe women should not be viewed or discussed by men in an overtly sexual manner.

But it goes on at building sites, in changing rooms and offices everywhere. The feminist movement has achieved many things, but men will always be attracted to women - or not as the case may be - and as much as we would all like to take the moral high ground on this issue, that is not going to change.

There is a reason why the lads mag market became so big. Men like to look at women and they like to talk about sex, sometimes in relation to a specific woman.

Just as women sometimes like to talk about men in a sexual context with their pals on a night out, at work, or on the phone, but hopefully not when the microphones are still on and the tapes are running.

Women should not be discriminated against on the basis of their gender, which is what Gray and hairy hands Richard Keys have been guilty of, they should not be discriminated against on the basis of their looks.

But a beautiful woman will always attract male attention and with subsequently became the subject of male conversations.. Women's looks will always be assessed by men in the same way that a woman assesses a man's.

And, let's face it, for all the women in football who are suddenly crying sexism, how many of them have actually used their gender to their advantage at times in their profession?

I don't mean sleeping with anyone, but the very fact they are different to the norm? It attracts attention, it offers a different perspective. It makes them stand out from the crowd.

Female radio reporters, for example, are all the rage at the moment because the bosses believe people are more likely to talk to a woman when a microphone is shoved under their faces as they are more polite and less threatening.

Sexism is everywhere, but sometimes it has more to do with the differences between the sexes rather than discrimination.

Gray and Keys deserve to go for the reasons I've discussed earlier, but let's not pretend some of the conversations that have taken place do not occur regularly in all lines of work.

Contrary to popular belief, the moral high ground does not always give you the best view!