Muristek
Criticism of women’s sport is healthy but the right balance can be hard to strike | Megan Maurice
The criticism is so often rooted in misogyny that there is an understandable fear of opening up to too much of it
Criticism is as inevitable as breathing, or so TS Eliot would have us believe. But the debate over whether criticism is applied fairly to women in sport continues to do the rounds, questioning why our female athletes are not criticised for their mistakes in the same way their male counterparts are. The problem is of course that this question springs from an assumption that we have equality in sport in the first place. That it is only a lack of fair criticism holding women’s sport back from achieving its peak.
With the rise of women’s sport over the past five years, you don’t have to look very hard to see female athletes described as “golden girls”, role models or being compared favourably to male athletes for their behaviour and composure. The likes of Ash Barty, Ellyse Perry and Liz Watson are often given as examples of how an athlete can be talented and successful as well as gracious and humble.
Continue reading...