Uh Oh! NBC statement explaining Olympics tape delay sounds MIGHTY SEXIST!!

by SooperMexican

When people were demanding to know from NBC why they tape delayed the opening ceremony, they really could have just said it was a business decision to save money or something. But instead, they decided to go full blown sexist and people are flipping out.

Yeah here’s the statement:

“The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans. More women watch the games than men, and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and miniseries wrapped into one. And to tell the truth, it has been the complaint of a few sportswriters. It has not been the complaint of the vast viewing public.”

Oh boy.

I mean, I don’t have a problem with the statement because I think it’s generally true that women are about experiencing the process of events and men are about achieving some kind of competitive success. But you can’t just go around telling truths in today’s society, good Lord no!!

The Business Insider clutched at many pearls and clucked many disapprovals:

But his logic seems to be that the large female audience watching the Olympics is watching for the feel-good, human-interest narratives and not for the actual competitions or results.

The corollary that follows would be that men exclusively care about the results. At best, this feels like a stale and outdated understanding of how and why both men and women consume sports.

Plus, a recent Gallup poll showed that American women’s interest in the Olympics is dropping. Whereas 63% of women polled in 2012 expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of interest in watching the London Games, only 47% said the same about Rio.

Sooooo… the polls bear his observation out, but we’re still gonna call that sexist.

I hate when reality is sexist.

The unbridled sexism didn’t keep Ginny Thrasher from beating the competition and getting us our first gold medal, appropriately enough, in the shooting event!


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