with heavy sighing, i take back a goodly portion of my 'yaying' last week over the olympics. i do love them. i do. i love the bringing together of peoples and cultures. but that bringing together also tends to point out some of the great problems we have on this earth. for example, saudi arabia.
{jeré longman}
there's a lot in this piece that made my blood boil. like that saudi arabia is 'irked' by the attention it is getting for its women-athelete-isues. yeah. i'm irked too. so irked i want to go scream until i have no more voice left. until i'm retching and spitting and choking. so irksome.
remember when we all shook out heads while watching 'a league of their own' when the women were made to wear such absurd little skirts to play their sport? and they were upset and horrified by it? remember when we thought 'that was a bad time for women... ooof! thank god we are not living such repressed lives now. thank god!'
i remember that.
i guess i should be glad that the women's volleyballers don't HAVE to wear bikinis anymore. and i guess i am. but it isn't enough. not nearly. none of it is enough. not for 2012. not even close.
not when this sport
has to looks like this so that women can play it in this liberal, freedom-screaming part of the world...
and everything else.
1 comment:
Buuut, the good thing about the Olympics (other good thing) is that it is often used to shine a light on these sorts of inhumanities, naming and shaming the countries into getting their acts together...
("2011 / 2012: Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia of contravening the Olympic Charter by systematically preventing women from practicing sports in the country, and by not allowing Saudi women athletes to take part in the Olympic Games, thus violating the fourth, sixth and seventh fundamental principles of the Charter, which every member of the Olympic Movement is bound to. This came as Anita DeFrantz, chair of the I.O.C.'s Women and Sports Commission, suggested that the country be barred from participating in the Olympics until it agrees to send women athletes to the Games. ")
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