Tag Archives: Women’s Sport

Comedy & Humour, Cricket, Football, Sport

Sexist soft-touch patronisingly Pink Ladyball released for Women’s Football

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Patronisingly Pink Ladyball for Women’s Football

Unbelievably, to encourage women in sport a pink sparkly soft-touch football is being marketed in a “pretty pattern that is designed especially for a woman’s grip”. Sigh! Women are more likely to be put off football by the sexism and homophobia in sport, unequal pay and media coverage, rather than the colour and texture of the ball!

Unless this is a major satirical spoof, it ticks every possible patronising pitch possible: “pretty” check, “pink” check, “sparkly” check, “soft” check, “easy” check, “glamorous” check!

Ladyball pink football kiss

Serious Proposition or Irish Joke?

It’s being made in Ireland, and it’s tempting to think that it is an Irish April Fool’s joke were it not January and endorsed by a real sportsman – Ger Brennan, an All-Ireland winning Gaelic Football player. Surely, it has to be a farcical fake designed to challenge rather than collude with sexism in sport?

In fact, their Twitter feed is full of jokes, disbelief, and amazingly, apparent appreciation. Lots of “ball” jokes and since one of the founders is female, a lot of poking fun at female stereotypes, or are they deadly serious?

Their modern media, PR and advertising, seem to be everywhere in Ireland and yet their tagline soundbites are out of the pre-feminist dark ages:

“Don’t break a nail, break boundaries with #Ladyball” “Our ladies sure are pretty in pink! #Ladyball” “Ladies, the wait is finally over (&we don’t mean the one for the ring!) Introducing #Ladyball!” “Our pink #Ladyball has silver accents to help you sparkle on the pitch!”

 

Ladyball Official Launch Spec

Sexy or sexist female footballer with lady ball
From the Ladyball website – an adapted shutterstock image rather than a real photoshoot, suggestive of a spoof?

From the Ladyball website comes this:

Ladyball is the concept led by a group of aspiring entrepreneurs who have made it their personal goal in life to encourage girls to play more team sports, and to bring a feminine touch to the all too masculine world of sports! The idea for Ladyball came from personal experience when one of the creators tried various ball sports as a weight loss measure and found the regular (or as we like to call them “man-sized”) balls heavy, cumbersome and difficult to control. It was then (as Oprah would say) she had an “aha moment”; what if there was a ball designed just for women, a soft, trendy ball that could enhance natural feminine abilities and make it easier for girls to play? After a lot of market research we found that there really wasn’t anything like that available, and in the majority of cases women just had to make do with balls meant for men. In order to fill this gap in the market and with the hopes of making team sports more accessible to women, the idea for Ladyball was born! Since that day we have spent countless hours researching and designing our creation. We want to revolutionize the way ladies play sports.

These women are kitted out in Ladyball’s branding but inappropriate footwear:

Reaction on Twitter

Ladies want a “lady-ball” so they don’t break a nail, suggests a retweet by the makers:

Yet other tweets still believe it to be a spoof or social experiment, one journalist received a press release and was stumped not to find a punchline at the end of what they assumed was a joke:

Pink Balls

It’s not the first time pink balls have been introduced. Last November saw a premium game played with a pink ball and which led a male sports commentator to say:

“The pink ball is the prettiest, clearest projectile we have known. Its iridescence allowed superb pictures on television” – ESPN

Kookaburra Pink Cricket Ball
Kookaburra Turf Pink Ball

This was cricket, however, and male cricket at that! It was first introduced by Kookaburra in 2006 for a Cancer charity event but is now being used in some day-night matches for visibility. Mark Nicholas watching the Test at Australia’s Adelaide Oval went on to wax lyrical about the colourful aesthetics of the game:

“colours are an almost subconscious attraction – the way in which white clothing, for example, has such clarity against the green field and how a clear blue sky wraps itself so brightly around the canvas that the game creates.”

In cricket, at least, despite divided opinions, it is regarded as an innovation here to stay, but nothing to do with gender stereotypes.

Satire, PR Stunt or Sexist Stereotype?

It just, could be, that their advertising ‘genius’ is a girlie girl who loves sparkly pink. Just because pink is a female stereotype, doesn’t mean girls can’t be seen in pink, but to my mind this sets sports equality back years in perception, at least. The truth, if this is even true, will be whether it increases participation and gives the boot to received wisdom about women’s football. Not wanting to spoil the spoof or burst the ball of fun that this possibly serious-point making set-up appears to be, fact-checking flagged-up alarm bells and other mixed metaphors. Just trying to investigate their quoted ” patented Eazi-Play technology” drew a blank. Scottish football agrees although sees it as a hoax that “Highlights Discrimination in Sport” and “sexism in football. So, I call fake rather than foul, in this instance. Indeed, in the last few hours, Munster Hockey seem to have confessed to creating the challenge to sexist stereotypes, some assume an announcement about women’s sport is imminent and others are now doubting the spoof creator’s claims as just trying to get in on the act! It’s either a marketing marvel, comedy gold, or an unevolved sexist disaster. It just could be, the best advert for hockey yet:

The Munster Branch has this morning confessed to the creation of the Ladyball. We never expected it to get so much…

Posted by Munster Hockey on Friday, 15 January 2016

“we would like to apologise for nearly breaking the internet. However, we have been successful in making a very valid point. Men’s and women’s sport should be equal – same rules, same equipment and same goals. Hockey is one of the very few sports where men and women are on a par with each other in terms of coverage and recognition. So if anyone out there is looking to take up a sport that treats everyone as equal maybe hockey is the sport for you.”

Whether Munster Hockey were in on it or not, the @theladyball_com Twitter account has now also confessed to the ruse promoting women’s gaelic football (LGFA) along with Lidl sponsorship, “a lighting rod for the discussion of attitudes to women in sports and an amplifier for voices of support”.

Comedy & Humour, Cricket, Sport

Gayle, Boycott & the non-PC world of sexist & homophobic humour in Sport

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Geoffrey Boycott Bingo

Geoffrey Boycott is still struggling with the modern age it seems as heard on Test Match Special this morning during the England-South Africa cricket game:

“Pitches are like wives, you never know how they’re going to turn out…Best not say that to ‘our Rachel'”

Presumably, the Rachael mentioned is his wife Rachael Swinglehurst, but another Rachael might have something to say about attitudes to women as cricketers, or in sport generally. Rachael Heyhoe-Flint is England women’s team former captain and premier cricketer who did so much to promote women in the sport, including being the first full female member of the MCC, not to mention also playing hockey for England.

Cricket commentator Mark Nicholas, who worked with Boycott, told his biographer that “sometimes Geoff can be so rude you just want to punch his lights out”. Something which Geoff would call “being forthright” or “blinkers on”, and for which he has apologised.

Some more non-pc quotes from Geoffrey, having become part of the lingo of Boycott Bingo, which some argue should be boycotted:

“Me mum could have caught that in her pinny”
“My gran could have hit that with her broom handle”

Equally, one could argue that we take sexist humour too seriously – but humour often sits in reality, and it’s not men we should be asking if they find it funny, but women and wives. Theresa May, is apparently a big fan of Boycott.

There is indeed a “corridor of uncertainty” with Boycott as to how likely it is a case of ‘tongue in cheek’ or a ‘foot in mouth’ expression, when he said the following, of his wife, it was meant to be endearingly funny:

“She’s lucky to have me. I keep telling her. I could have got fulltime help in and less lip.”

Beefy was not immune to not getting to grips with evolved equality:

“I don’t ask my wife to face Michael Holding, so there’s no reason why I should be changing nappies” – Ian Botham

Chris Gayle’s Alleged Sexism

Chris Gayle West Indies Cricketer
Chris Gayle West Indies Cricketer (2005)

With Chris Gayle (mis)taking the opportunity of an interview with an Australian female sports interviewer, Mel McLaughlin, to flirt, patronisingly rather than in any sense endearingly, some sportsmen are still struggling to shed the image that it is a heterosexist no-go area for women and gay men. Gayle called McLaughlin “baby” on live camera, he argued cultural differences later, as faux-apology. An interview with Boycott in 2011 described Geoffrey as liking “to call a spade a shovel and a woman ‘love'”, another cultural difference, are West Indies and West Yorkshire closer that previously thought?

Gayle’s behaviour was described as “sexist, not sexy” and contributing to why, despite:

“almost everything about sport [having] improved in the past few decades, yet still women are unable to simply turn up to work and do their job properly without being slobbered over by lecherous simpletons like Gayle.”

The same writer, male in fact, reported with disbelief on how women in motorsports were essentially meant to be “good sports” which he summarised as “silently accept[ing] being sexually harassed” and turning a blind eye. I would add that women are expected to be good sports in the sense of laughing off inappropriate testosterone-fueled banter rather than be “good at sports”.

Coming Out as Gay in Sport

FIFA, has this week fined five South American football bodies for homophobic chants at their games. Meanwhile, Qatar – awarded the 2022 World Cup, has just banned the film The Danish Girl for its trans depiction as “moral depravity”.

Coming out as a gay sportsman, in football, rugby and cricket, especially, is rarer and harder than coming out as a gay Tory cabinet minister. As Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservatives leader quipped, “it was easier coming out as a lesbian than coming out as a Tory”. A gay male footballer still remains a taboo beyond even that. Part of the issue for people is that the atmosphere of sport can still so often seem like some men behave down the pub, “Blokesworld mindset“, after a few drinks too many, and the overly “laddish” environment can discourage the full participation or spectation of all members of society.