The UCI's Troubles with Women
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 1:46 AM EST
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Two recent comments from the UCI indicate just how troubling the UCI's relationship with women road racers really is these days.
Shane Stokes at Velonation posted an article on Jan. 10 discussing the UCI's response to Rabobank trainer Jeroen Blijlevens' suggestion that Marianne Vos should compete in some select UCI men's races. Blijlevens is concerned that Vos may not be sufficiently motivated racing against women to reach her true potential. UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani squashed that idea with no equivocation.
On Jan. 3, in an interview with the Daily Peloton, UCI president Pat "Richard" McQuaid finally deigned to comment on his controversial remark in Copenhagen that he did not think that the UCI would any time soon be able to mandate a minimum salary requirement for women's pro racing: "We have an agreement in men's sport, but women's cycling has not developed enough that we are at that level yet."
Both recent comments from the UCI, I will argue below, suggest the UCI has been very inexpert about its women road racers.
Let's start with McQuaid's Copenhagen remark that the women's side of the sport has not "developed enough" for a mandatory minimum wage. Informed of McQuaid's remark, Bronzini, Vos, and Teutenberg, the world championship road race medal winners in Copenhagen, expressed no small disagreement with their president.
Bronzini: "We're not less than the men"
Vos: "I think we all do as much for the sport as the men do, so why not equal it?" "Of course, it's a younger sport than the men's sport, but it's getting more and more professional and with a minimum salary it can only be more professional."
Teutenberg: "Why do they say that? I think that's total bullshit," "We've seen in the last number of years that it's getting more and more professional. The level is getting harder. You can't come to a race anymore and win if you are not fit. I don't know why guys would deserve a minimum salary and women don't. We're living in the 21st century so there should be equal rights for everybody."
Clearly, at least Vos and Teutenberg understood McQuaid to say that the quality of women's pro racing has not developed sufficiently for the women to deserve a minimum wage. (I rarely understand Bronzini.) And these Copenhagen women are not alone in understanding McQuaid's remark as a claim about the quality of women's racing. Consider the recent case of young Chloe Hosking. On Jan. 1, she called McQuaid a dick, or a bit of dick, whichever it was. And, I offer, she did so because she understood McQuaid in Copenhagen to demean the quality of women's racing.
What can be said? Pat McQuaid’s a dick. To say at the biggest sporting event of women's cycling that we're not progressed enough to have a minimum salary, . . . I mean, how do we progress if we all have to still work and we can't support ourselves?
There has just been some really negative things said in the press lately about how women's racing is boring and how we don't deserve a minimum salary
Now, McQuaid's Copenhagen remark, read as it was by many of the best women in the sport, makes the ire of many women cyclists quite understandable. But is that what McQuaid said in Copenhagen?
Gerard Vroomen did not understand McQuaid that way.
Pat MacQuaid stated at the World Championships that women’s cycling was “not developed enough” for a guaranteed minimum wage. Some riders (Vos, Teutenberg, Bronzini et al) saw that as a disqualification of their performance but it wasn’t.
Although Vroomen goes on to say--too cutely--that McQuaid's remark was rather a disqualification of the UCI, he at least understood McQuaid to have in mind what many did, and what I also had in mind.
If you make the minimum wage the same for women as it is for the WorldTour or Pro Conti, there would be no women’s teams left. It simply wouldn’t be viable at all, the disconnect between the exposure and the payroll would be completely out of whack. It’s already difficult - rightfully or wrongfully - to justify a women’s team for many organizations now. Doubling, trebling or tenfolding the payroll is not going to help the sport, it would kill it.
I.e., mandating a minimum salary requirement would increase the costs of funding a UCI women's team, and since the level of sponsor interest in women's racing is not sufficiently developed, this would mean that UCI women's teams would receive less funding, less sponsorship.
President McQuaid finally addressed his Copenhagen remark on Jan. 3 in an interview with the Daily Peloton. Here's what the Daily Peloton asked McQuaid.
What is the the UCI willing to do or can do, to help bring that about the needed development to Justify or qualify for a minimum wage? Gerard Vroomen hosted a lively debate on his blog regarding what might be done for the women. Among the suggestions were:
Some have suggested requiring all WorldTour teams to have a womens team, is this a practical solution?
Others have suggested that all of the WorldTour races be required to have a women's race; likewise does this seem to you a viable solution?
Do you see either of these mandates as a practical solution for the raising the level of women's pro sport to qualify for a minimum wage?
(Is Nicholas Roche writing for the Daily Peloton??) McQuaid answered as follows.
First of all, let me say that my remark made in Copenhagen regarding the development of women's cycling has consistently been taken out of context by some media and cyclists. The UCI, and myself as President, are the first to recognise the quality and ever-increasing level of women’s cycling throughout the world. Unfortunately, it has not yet attracted the same level of sponsorship and financial backing as men’s cycling, and it is regarding this that my remarks about the development of women’s cycling were made.
Obviously, we would dearly like to see this situation change, but we must remain realistic. The UCI cannot oblige a sponsor of a men’s team to also create a women’s team. Likewise, we cannot oblige an Organiser to stage a women’s race in parallel with each men’s race. While this may be viable in some cases, in others it would not be possible and could even be detrimental to our sport rather than beneficial. The passion for women’s cycling must come from a more grass roots level, not from creating new rules and obligations.
McQuaid's Copenhagen remark was not taken out of context. There's no more context to the remark than I indicated above--at least that I can find. The remark, rather, is just vague. Its vagueness is found in the phrase, "developed enough". Well, developed enough in what way? There are wide variety of ways to think of women's pro cycling as developing and hence a wide variety of ways to interpret McQuaid's remark.
Speaking or writing with perfect clarity and precision in normal human communication is not often possible nor even desirable. The benefits of precision and clarity are not often worth the costs of too many words. Fine. But, McQuaid should have known soon after the fact that his remark was misunderstood by many of the best women in the sport, and he should have known that his remark angered many of them. McQuaid, though, waited for two and a half months to clarify his remark, and, he did so, apparently, only after being called a dick in public. Either McQuaid just doesn't care much about the attitudes of one his larger constituencies, women road racers, or he's completely in the dark about their attitudes.
Moreover, McQuaid should well know that the sharp responses to his Copenhagen remark are a sign of a fairly widespread frustration in the women's peloton. Many are not happy with their position and status in cycling. This can be easily seen in news posts, and Twitter and blog comments since Copenhagen.
Take Georgia Bronzini's arresting December comment that she would not recommend cycling to aspiring Italian women athletes. Wow.
(I'm making a fraction of what Bronzini is making with her Italian military salary, paid to her to race bikes (WTF!?!) and the salary she receives from her team. Sorry Georgia, little sympathy for you in particular here. And, Jesus Christ, grow your hair out. You look like a fairly unattractive teenage boy.)
If you want insight into the attitude of many in the women's peloton, there might be no better recent interview than you'll find than that between Pez Cycling and the super-hot Elizabeth Hatch.
PEZ: How could the UCI help women’s cycling?
Liz: They could acknowledge that it exists! First thing is that McQuaid needs to wake up and realise that there are women riding bikes and racing!
If Elizabeth really spoke "realise" to Pez, with an "s", rather than a "z", then I'm her's foreover. I'm your slave, Liz.
Liz: I think more and more of the women that are racing are becoming more vocal about it. I feel that before no one ever said much, but now they are getting angry.
PEZ: Will you be racing next year?
Liz: No, I will never ever race pro again. . . . One thing happened and another thing happened and then I found myself racing in Europe. I was really excited about doing it, but it wasn’t a life time goal. . . . but I just realized this year you just can’t make a living doing it. Also, there comes a point, I’m 31 years-old now, when you see there is no future in racing for me. Cycling is in my future, but not professional racing. Professional by definition it is something you make a living doing. It was becoming too much of a struggle to stay at a good level and live a life. For example, the team I was on [the Lotto Ladies Team]; we weren’t paid and we had to pay our own travel. This was one of the best UCI teams, so there was no reward for all the effort. I still love riding my bike, but I stopped loving racing because you have to be fulfilled emotionally, spiritually and financially. It got to the point where I don’t want to risk my health and my life anymore for nothing. I don’t want that to sound ungrateful, it’s just a fact.
Elizabeth Hatch is now doing promotional work for Ridley.
Perhaps McQuaid is a very busy man. The UCI Overlord at cyclismas.com recently suggested that the UCI has bitten off more than it can chew, given its staff and funding. Perhaps it's asking too much from McQuaid, or the UCI on whole, to keep track of the attitudes of women road racers and to respond to their concerns with the fine-grained sensitivity that I'm implicitly suggesting he or they should. But, really? How much work does it take to recognize the women of the pro peloton are very unhappy and to respond to them accordingly? I peruse cycling news sites, blog posts, and Twitter comments at the end of the day and fairly well into a few beers, and yet it's obvious to me they are unhappy. The UCI's clumsy and awkward replies to women suggest they can't manage it, or, as Liz Hatch suggests above, they just don't care.
Now, let's consider UCI spokesman Enrico Carpanis' Jan. 10 remark, reported in Velonation, about Vos racing with men in UCI races. Carpani asserted unequivocally that women may never race against men in UCI men's races. The general principle that women may never race against men in UCI races, simply because they are women, is patently UNJUST. The best UCI road races should be open to the best racers, regardless of gender. Now, can you imagine world-class women racers hearing this remark? Many must be thinking to themselves, "So, well, no matter how good I am, I just can never race against men, simply because I'm a woman. Is that right?" Coming on the heels of McQuaid's Copenhagen communications fiasco, one might imagine that Carpani's remark would only add fuel to the fire of the frustration in the women's peloton.
One can see that the UCI has at least some hazy awareness of a problem in Carpanis' further remarks in the Velonation article.
There is women’s cycling, there is men’s cycling. The UCI is trying to improve women’s cycling. [Really? How?] We know there is a big potential there. We know that Marianne Vos is one of the most successful in history in women’ cycling, but she is a woman and she will stay competing with the women. [!!!]
But, perhaps, patronization can smooth things over, even so.
We hope that with her great performances and her great charisma in cycling, that Marianne Vos will contribute and help the UCI to further develop women’s cycling with her personality and her amazing career.”
Then, Carpani took a surprising tack.
The UCI will undertake all we can in order to improve women’s cycling. I can confirm that internally, we are studying and exploring the different ways to do so. With more and more women being involved in cycling, I can confirm that a project will be launched in the coming weeks in order to evaluate the role of women in this sport.
What optimism we'll all have. The recent comments from the UCI about what it has done to promote women's cycling refer exclusively to its equalizing the medal count in track racing between women and men in anticipation of the London Olympic games. Well, the IOC required the UCI to do this. What else for women, UCI?
And, here are my final two-bits. There may not be much else the UCI can do for women's cycling. The sport simply needs more cash. It is not clear where it will come from. The ire of many of women cyclists, I believe, is based on their unhinged expectation that the men's side of the sport should subsidize the women's sport by having every men's team fund a women's team and pay them a minimum wage. But that ain't happening, as McQuaid said above on Jan. 3. And, frankly, if the UCI were to mandate it through coercion, it would be tantamount to theft. So, where are we? I don't know. The Garden of Eden? At least the UCI should communicate more skillfully and intelligently with its women road racers. 1. If the UCI believes that mandating a minimum wage for women pro racers would harm the sport, then the UCI should explain why it thinks so. Many women, apparently, believe that the UCI can, and it is at least in part leading to their unhappy remarks in public. 2. If the UCI "cannot obligate" men's teams to fund women's teams, they should explain why that is so.
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A couple of reactions to this:
- I have little sympathy for the strong sense of entitlement that athletes seem to feel. The UCI should obligate men’s teams to fund women’s teams? I thought the West was past the point in our history where we believed in The Authorities compelling the creation of jobs that did not profit the company? Why doesn’t the UCI obligate all teams to pay for 10000 full-time fans each, so we don’t have to worry about getting day jobs? It would certainly give an incentive to become a cycling fan, rather than a fan of any other sport!
- The UCI approaches things from the perspective of the sport, and of reality (how successfully it does so is of course another issue). The riders, and often the fans, seem to approach things from the perspective of an innate entitlement, with no consideration of pragmatic details. The UCI tells women riders that it’s not practical to give them a minimum wage, they respond “how dare he say I don’t deserve a minimum wage?”. Well, there’s a place for talking about what people deserve, but an international governing body will always have to look instead at what it possible (and profitable). That’s its job.
- A lot of the misogyny lies in the assumptions of the listener, not the speaker. I doubt that that UCI is misogynist, it’s just pragmatic. Unfortunately, when pragmatism hurts women, allegations of chauvenism always arise. It’s not as though the UCI has a record of always caving in to the demands of male riders, either, or of having a great PR department in any respect. But when you argue with a man, you’re an idiot; when you argue with a woman, you’re a dick. [Preemptive defence: I’m not characterising the responses of women as a whole to argument, I’m talking just about the way that the UCI-vs-women debates are unable to escape from the broader feminist context. Yet I suspect that if the UCI had, for instance, height-classes (like weight classes in boxing), and one height class was less succesful than another, the UCI would be just as disinterested in it as they are in women today.]
- The UCI doesn’t pay as much attention to women riders because they aren’t as important. That’s plain fact – they don’t bring in as much money, they don’t bring in as much awareness, and there aren’t as many of them. If you’re a UCI executive, only a tiny fraction of your time and energy is going to be taken up by women’s issues – so obviously, you’re not going to care as much about them. The riders can complain that, as people, they’re just as worthy as the men, and that’s true, but the UCI is not God, and its remit is not to dispense universal justice and make everybody feel loved. Its remit is managing and co-ordinating the business of cycling, and women’s riders are (currently) a relatively unimportant part of that business. Fundamentally, the UCI doesn’t care about women’s cycling because nobody cares about women’s cycling – this board is full of unusually fanatical cycling enthusiasts, and even here not everyone cares about women’s cycling!
- relatedly, the arguments of women riders are futile, and to an extent appear bitter and entitled, precisely because they have no weapons. The men can argue with the UCI and to some extent often get what they want, because they have power – they have the money and they have the audience, so they can make threats, and use their power for leverage. The women can’t really do that. So they’re left demanding things, backed up only by the power to call people dicks and imply misogyny. [I should note: I’m ok with her calling McQuaid a dick. It’s a pretty mild expression for him, frankly, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her using it – he’s not her boss. Where it becomes problematic for me is not on the individual level but at the wider, strategic level]
- This in turn is part of why the UCI aren’t interested in spending time and effort placating women – because what are they going to do if they don’t? The women riders will all go on strike, perhaps? Oh no, I can imagine how much anguish the UCI will feel about that. They’ll just be devastated, I’m sure. Meanwhile, the stuff the UCI actually does for a living (rather than the stuff the UCI does as a hobby, and/or to boost PR, and/or as a blue-sky experimental initiative for the far future) will go on just the same as before. From the UCI’s point of view, if they have to choose between a) spending as much time and money on women’s cycling as they do on men’s, and b) no women’s cycling at all, they would, though they’re too polite to say it, prefer the latter.
- Therefore, the women should concentrate on what is achievable. They can probably grow their sport considerably, and can probably get the UCI to pay more attention to them. They can’t get parity with the men (in the short term, at least), so shouting about that will just annoy people while distracting from the concrete issues. They won’t get equal treatment because they’re not equal – as people, sure, they’re equal, but as entertainers, they’re not. They are, fundamentally, getting paid to entertain an audience, and if the audience is very small, they will not get paid very much. Nor can an entertainer simply demand that the government (or a media company, or the entertainer’s union, or whatever other analogy you want) give them a larger audience.
- On the particular issue of minimum wages: this would be a disaster for women’s cycling even if they weren’t fixed equal to male salaries. Minimum wages are a disincentive for employers. Now, when a job is clearly profitable to have done, a minimum wage is no problem. But when you’re paying someone to do a job only because you feel you ought to, or out of a personal interest, or as a long-term plan with no clear benefits but it might make a profit someday maybe – well then it doesn’t take much of a disincentive to make you stop employing that person. You can’t get someone to create a job on the grounds that “hey, wouldn’t it be cool to run a women’s cycling team?”, and THEN turn around and say, “oh yeah, if you sign up to that, we demand X dollars per year and that’s just the beginning”. They’ll just shrug and walk away.
- sex segregation in sport is a difficult issue. Bilateral segregation isn’t an idea unique to the UCI – it’s very widespread, and is often defending by calling the opposite side misogynist and unjust. [I.e. if you let women compete against men but don’t let men compete against women, you’re effectively saying that the men’s event is the “real” event and that the women’s event is a thing you run because you know women aren’t good enough to win the real events. So in saying that women and men are equal but different, and thus compete in completely different, completely segregated events, and by ruling out the idea that succesful women may get “promoted” to be “honorary men”, Carpani et al may actually see themselves as being feminist. Certainly it’s an argument that has been put forward by many feminists. By this account, women wouldn’t be worse at cycling than men – women are just as good at “women’s cycling” as men are at “men’s cycling”, and obviously Vos can’t do men’s cycling because she’s not a man]. I think the conflict between the two models [meritocratic upper league and ‘women only’ lower league, enabling the top women to achieve more while to some extent diminishing the achievements within the women’s league, vs complete equality between two fully segregated leagues, giving greater respect to women’s achievements but limiting their freedom more] is a more complicated matter than you give it credit for. And while I personally do tend to favour the more meritocratic, Anglo-Saxon model, I realise that there are difficulties with it. [For one thing, the idea that women must be worse at a sport because otherwise they’d be competing in the ‘real’ event is a big obstacle to getting equal pay. The freedom to compete against men is something women largely have to give up if they want equal pay in a sport, I suspect. To take an example, tennis is doing well at getting equal pay (despite unequal labour in its case!), but in part only because top female players forego the right to compete against men. It’s probably harder to convince people to pay top women the same as top men when they see the top women failing against the male #240 in the world. So in tennis, women are segregated. On the other hand, in something like snooker, top women players have increasingly tried to compete against men, with the result that they not only don’t have equal pay, they’ve now lost their own segregated league. Politically it’s difficult to pursue both rhetorics of equality simultaneously – you can either have equality of opportunity (both sexes allowed to enter the same gender-blind events) or you can have equality of outcome (both sexes given equal prize money and equal TV time), or a little bit of each, but I don’t think you can get 100% of both types of equality at the same time – the rhetorics are too conflicting]. I’m sorry, long detour there.
- I guess I’ll finish with one last point: dude, seriously? You make a thread about how the UCI are patronising women, and in that very thread you criticise the women’s World Champion for… having a haircut that doesn’t make her sufficiently sexually attractive? I’m sorry, you say McQuaid is bad at PR?
by Wastrel on Jan 16, 2012 8:31 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Because I don't know how to edit...
… I’d like to make one bit a bit clearer there. When I said “I.e. if you let women compete against men but don’t let men compete against women, you’re effectively saying that…”, I should have said, “I.e. if you let women compete against men but don’t let men compete against women, you could be seen as saying (and are likely to find people arguing that effectively you are saying) that…”. Hope that clears it up.
I also don’t have anywhere to put this but I think it’s worth bearing in mind: these are people getting paid to do what they love. I think that’s one reason why I lack sympathy for them. They are people who most of the population would regard as already very privileged, and although that doesn’t, per se, make it illegitimate for them to complain about other people being more privileged, it makes it uncomfortable reading. While I theoretically of course approve of gender equality, the sight of somebody going “hey, I’m not as privileged as they are! Privilege me more!” is not one I find particularly edifying. That’s not the be-all-and-end-all of the argument (if I thought they had a better and more practical case I could swallow that discomfort), but it’s not a very good start.
don't assume that just because someone "loves" to do something
that makes it okay to screw them because of that. Repeatedly getting screwed because you’re doing something you love tends to make someone stop loving it pretty quickly. Warren Buffett is privileged. A gal carrying around her own box of spices so she has something of ‘home’ as she lives out of a suitcase and depends on the hospitality of strangers is not really “privileged.”
Also, personally, I’ve found many of the women’s races I watched in the last couple of years to be more entertaining racing than comparable men’s races because . . . there was more racing.
Now, if the UCI wanted to develop women’s racing, they would encourage the distribution of highlight clips of those races so that more eyeballs could see that because the races are shorter, etc. etc. the racing is often better than that found on the men’s side.
Finally, Jen Purcell and Jen McRae used to regularly jump into men’s Cat3 races. I see no reason why Vos shouldn’t be allowed to race something like Hel van Het Mergelland. Would be great publicity.
don't assume that just because you don't get what you want you're being screwed
If women’s cycling were earning billions for teams and the UCI and women cyclists got none of it? OK, then the riders would be getting screwed. But so far as I’m aware, that’s not happening. If somebody were making a woman live out of a suitcase, then she’d be getting screwed, but that’s not true either – she’s perfectly able to get a different job. A heck of a lot of people would like her job, would do a lot to get it, but can’t. She gets to choose between the job lots of people want and the jobs that other people have to put up with having instead, and she chooses the fun job – and then complains that it’s not fun enough. Youb know, I’d love to be in a position where I had my ideal job, and was able to complain publically to the people who wished they had my job that I wasn’t being paid enough to do the job I’d probably be willing to do for free anyway. But lo and behold, I’m not in that position. Nor are most of us.
These people are not disadvantaged relative to the rest of us. If they want a normal job instead, they can have it, or at least have as much of a chance of one as the rest of us get. But they get the choice, which most of us don’t – most of us will never be a world-class athlete (insert many other dream occupations here). So yes, they’re privileged. Are they are privileged as Warren Buffet? Well, if Buffett were complaining he wasn’t being given enough money, I’d not receive that well either. Although actually, my general antipathy for the ruling class aside, it’s hard to argue Buffett was particularly privileged, beyond being born America. Sure, his dad was well-off and taught him the rudiments of investment and business, but most of what Buffett has he got through work, not through any innate genetic or financial benefit. By the time he’d finished college, he’d made a $90,000 fortune. True, he was good at maths, but the number of people in this world who could have been Warren Buffett is a lot, lot larger than the number of people who could have been Marianne Vos.
But you’re right. We should move all cycling races to one designated city, possibly Rome, so that riders don’t have to “live out of a suitcase” or feel homesick. Because it’s not as though anybody other than a female professional cyclist has ever felt homesick.
—
Sure, you may have been more entertained by women’s races, but you are patently in the minority. Now, how much of that is due to most people being ignorant, or not having the opportunity to be entertained by women’s racing, is of course arguable. But it’s also not the point. A business can’t pay its workers on the basis of what they ought to be paid, based on how much people would value them in a perfect world. Fine, let’s say that women deserve more money than men. That’s nice, that’s very encouraging to tell them, I’m sure, but it doesn’t change anything about the actual value of their labour in the marketplace.
Yes, the UCI should take more steps to popularise women’s racing. Steps like obligatory teams and minimum wages would be a step backwards.
More importantly, however, the UCI is not a supreme authority. It can’t wave its wand and make things happen. It has to pay for things. Paying for things takes money. If you put more money into women’s cycling, you have to take it away from other things. Drug testing, maybe, or expansion of the sport overseas, or youth development, or just out of the pockets of private teams who might otherwise use that money for something else (including profits to justify their existence to their shareholders or sugar daddies). And you could say that women deserve more than they get, ok, but it’s not just about distributing a fixed amount of money, it’s also about future revenue streams. If cutting funding for one thing means less money in the sport in the future, then the short-term increase in funding for women’s cycling would be counterproductive. I’m not arguing that the UCI are right in the balance that they strike – only that it’s not easy for them, and that criticism that doesn’t acknowledge that seems naive and narcissistic.
Personally, I agree that Vos should be allowed to compete. I just think that the mentality behind not letting her compete is more complicated, and potentially more understandable, than simple dickery or idiocy. I also think that even if the worldview underlying such a decision were clearly dickish or idiotic, it would be unlikely to be changed by a full-frontal assault. I think it’s deeper-rooted than that.
Not getting paid for a job (and I've done it often enough to know) isn't "a job."
It’s exploitation. Also known as the reason that graduate students in some schools are finally unionizing. Once you realize that the school’s main interest isn’t in “teaching you how to teach” but rather, “getting free labor by making it part of your educational requirement”—and hey, it’s not just free, they can actually soak you for tuition while you work for them—it’s tough not to feel somewhat used.
And that fact that there’s been a pre-existing race to the bottom doesn’t make it any better. So long as pretty much everyone acts like it is OK for women to race for free, there’s no economic reason for any team to pay women even a minimally decent wage—even if those wages would be a small percentage of the cost of running the team.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Hmm.
I’m not sure where you went to school, or are going to school, but I was paid quite a bit, a living wage, to learn how to teach. The freakin’ auto laborer’s union (WTF!?) tried to unionize us, and not because they had interests in promoting the welfare of graduate students. Heh.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 2:03 AM EST up reply actions
The US...students unions???
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Teaching assistants
at many universities are now unionized, yes. They are, because of a growing feeling among many graduate students that they were being underpaid and overworked in their role as teaching assistants and they wanted protections such as health insurance, fee reductions and limits on the hours they could be asked to work.
The conditions for graduate students in the US varies by university and field of study. So, for some students, the union was not that appealing, while for others it was a life-saver.
~ Gavia ~
Great publicity for the race, probably
Not necessarily good for women’s cycling though.
Certainly for a better established women’s sport, there’d be a danger that the best women competing with the men makes the rest of the women look like a second division rather than a top level competition in it’s own right. Though for Women’s road cycling, being seen as a second division might be a step up.
The UCI is not a business, or at least, it's not supposed to be.
Wastrel: “The UCI doesn’t pay as much attention to women riders because they aren’t as important. That’s plain fact – they don’t bring in as much money, they don’t bring in as much awareness, and there aren’t as many of them. If you’re a UCI executive, only a tiny fraction of your time and energy is going to be taken up by women’s issues – so obviously, you’re not going to care as much about them.”
Of course, you may be right. But, let’s look at the UCI’s charter.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 8:40 PM EST up reply actions
Argh. I posted that before I was finished.
The UCI’s charter, or “Constitution”.
Article 2
The purposes of the UCI are:
a) to direct, develop, regulate, control and discipline cycling under all forms worldwide;
b) to promote cycling in all the countries of the world and at all levels;
Article 3
The UCI will carry out its activities in compliance with the principles of:
a) equality between all the members and all the athletes, license-holders and officials, without racial, political, religious, or other discrimination.
Funny how “gender” is off that list in 3a. At any rate, the UCI’s consitution requires it to devote equal attention to promoting women’s racing as it does to men’s racing. Now, what that means in particular is not so clear. The UCI instituted a minimum salary requirement for the men. But, if the women’s side of the sport will only suffer should it do so, then that would hardly count as equal treatment. Nevertheless, the UCI’s constitution makes it clear that similar efforts to promote men’s cycling should be made in women’s cycling, even if, due to the differences, they can’t propose or mandate exactly the same initiatives. So, I would say that, if you are right, that UCI executives don’t pay as much attention to the women because “they don’t bring in much money”, then they are violating their constitution.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 8:56 PM EST up reply actions
Hm, not sure how instituting some sort of minimum could be a problem.
That’s like saying that if you can’t pay the person scrubbing the floors as much as you pay the middle management, then there’s no point in having a minimum wage for the person scrubbing the floors. Seems to me, that’s exactly the person who most needs a minimum wage. Maybe you say it’s a half time position, or a half year position, or something (it’s indeed a shorter calendar). But it’s fricking embarrassing for teams to sign women, expect women to do all of the promotion and take all of the risks that the men do, yet (often as not) basically make them pay their own way unless they’re stars. The only thing more offensive than setting a floor as low as, say, $10,000 a year is NOT setting a floor of even (say) $10,000 a year.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Ahhh. I'm not sure of your point.
My point in the above remarks was first and foremost that the UCI should not be a business, that its charter commits it to making equal attempts to promote men’s and women’s cycling, regardless of which is making more money. The reference to a minimum wage was only to indicate that it is not clear that it’s charter requires the UCI do exactly the same thing for each sport, since if instituting a minimum wage promoted the men’s side of the sport but was harmful to the women’s side of the sport, then that would not count as equal treatment. Whether instituting a minimum wage for the women’s side of the sport would actually harm it, is really a different debate, one that was partially held on another thread. I can only refer you to Vroomen’s comment below as well as the comment of others, e.g., that doing so would be harmful. I do not know much about what it takes or costs to fund a women’s pro team. I can only refer to those that do.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 1:01 AM EST up reply actions
OK, so the hypothetical, "instituting a minimum wage for the women’s side of the sport would actually harm it"
was meant as formal logic, rather than as a suggestion of something likely to happen in the real world? If so, yes, that makes sense.
But I’m debating whether that hypothetical has any bearing in the real world—that is, can there possibly be NO minimum wage that would be beneficial? I don’t see that. We hear of women really, truly paying their own way to race internationally, despite being on a team. That seems wrong in so many ways.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
and I do agree that, given the unequal work load /race schedule
I doubt anyone would suggest that women should start at parity with men, in terms of a yearly minimum wage.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Now I'm confused.
This remark seems made cooly, and sensibly. Oh, whatever, JFS_PGH. Just tell me what in particular you don’t like about my article.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 1:46 AM EST up reply actions
Sheesh. Just read all the way to the end of my article, before you reply.
Can there possibly be no minimum wage that would be beneficial?, you ask. Nothing in my above comments, or in my article, answers or addresses that question. It’s not an issue in the article. I myself have commented on another thread on this site that a low minimum wage, as suggested omnevilnihil, may well be a good way to go. Wow. What fire! What ire! Yeah, bring it on! I like it. (Are you female, perhaps??)
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 1:44 AM EST up reply actions
I'm not PR officer, so it's hard to see your point.
Wastrel: I guess I’ll finish with one last point: dude, seriously? You make a thread about how the UCI are patronising women, and in that very thread you criticise the women’s World Champion for… having a haircut that doesn’t make her sufficiently sexually attractive? I’m sorry, you say McQuaid is bad at PR?"
Huh? What?
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 9:04 PM EST up reply actions
Jesus Christ
It’s going to take me days to figure this out;.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 10:53 PM EST up reply actions
Sigh
Taking shots at Bronzini’s looks? Weak sauce.
~ Gavia ~
by Jen See on Jan 16, 2012 11:37 AM EST reply actions 2 recs
+1
You beat me to it.
"I’m pretty disappointed, but if this is what people want to see, a race decided on a downhill," Andy Schleck said. "I don’t think that. A finish like this should not be allowed."
+ 2
It’s also completely crazy, because Bronzini is cute as hell. Really, after reading that sentence, it’s clear there’s no point engaging with the rest of this.
Aka Pigeons!
by Sarah Connolly on Jan 16, 2012 5:22 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
(Not that it would make a difference if she's cute or not, of course
because someone’s looks/haircut should be the last thing that is used to judge whether they’re making a valid point or not)
Aka Pigeons!
by Sarah Connolly on Jan 16, 2012 5:27 PM EST up reply actions
My parenthetical remarks . . .
on Bronzini’s salary and haircut had nothing to do with challenging the “validity” of her claim that she’d not recommend cycling to aspiring women cyclists. I did, after all, call her claim “arresting”, and that was my true response to it. When I read that CN article, my true response was, “Wow”. So, I"m not sure what you’re on about here.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 9:09 PM EST up reply actions
Well, yes, they do.
Your paranthetical statements say, “if you are a woman, it’s quite normal and OK for any random asshole blowhard to tell you how you should look and act to be acceptable as a woman, never mind that the subjects at hand are riding and economics, not modeling contracts.” And if we don’t call you on being an asshole, then we’re going along with that assumption, that it’s OK to be an asshole. Which it isn’t.
Sure, we dump on various male riders esthetic choices all the time. But we don’t suggest that Phil Gil’s horrid taste in tuxes somehow casts doubts on his acceptability as a rider, nor as a male of the species. There are, admittedly, two male riders who do catch shit for their looks (the chicken and Ricco) but if their only negatives were their physiques, they’d catch a lot less shit.
Nobody gives a flying fuck if you don’t find a certain rider desirable. That’s between you and whatever’s between your legs. But acting like it’s your job to point it out to her (or him, or however you swing)? So not appropriate. Right up there with being the Neanderthal who’d go up to a stranger at a bar and say, “beavis and butthead” style, “Unnnnhh, Unnhhhh, I noticed you were really ugly. You, unnnnh, should go home.” Unless she hits on you, and asks you what she has to do to turn your crank. Then, by all means, tell her what she “needs” to know.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
to clarify, I'm not meaning to say you ARE an asshole (state of being)
but that you are taking on those characteristics in passing. And you might get a better response if you didn’t.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Hey, game on!!
1. Fine, maybe I am a “random asshole blowhard.” I’d not deny it. But that is hardly what my parenthetical remarks imply. My article above is a serious attempt to come to grips with the attitudes of women cyclists in the women’s pro peloton. I found the recent Jan. 3 and Jan. 10 remarks form the UCI very interesting and wanted to present them to everyone else. After all, both remarks were published on somewhat obscure sites. I wanted both remarks to be more public. Focusing on my off-hand, parenthetical remarks on Bronzini—who really SHOULD grow her hair out—does not in any way show that I did not make a sincere attempt to discuss the UCI comment’s seriously, or that any of my main points are false.
2. JFS_PGH: “Sure, we dump on various male riders esthetic choices all the time. But we don’t suggest that Phil Gil’s horrid taste in tuxes somehow casts doubts on his acceptability as a rider, nor as a male of the species.”
Oh, you’ve just gone off the rails here. Nothing that I’ve said casts doubt on Bronzini’s acceptability as a rider, nor as a female of the species. I’ve never questioned any win of her’s, nor here world championship title. In fact, I was keen to include her remarks because she is the current World Champion! All I’ve said, in a very off-hand kind of way is that she should grow her hair out. Honestly, who here does not doubt that she should? (Maybe she’s butch, and likes playing the role of the dude. If I found out that, that’s so, I’d not never say anything in public about it ever again.) So, what are you on about? I’d say a fifth of scotch.
3. JFS_PGH: Nobody gives a flying fuck if you don’t find a certain rider desirable. That’s between you and whatever’s between your legs. But acting like it’s your job to point it out to her (or him, or however you swing)? So not appropriate." Huh? What? I’d say you’re now on about 2/5’s of scotch. It’s a freakin’ blog post, on a site that allows random people to post about cycling. Explain to me how the fact that I make a parenthetical remark about Bronzini’s coiffure commits me to thinking it’s my job here to point out who is desirable or not to me. Good Lord. That’s either a 3/5’s of scotch, or some serious psychological problems.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 1:38 AM EST up reply actions
Really?
BFD. Do you agree or disagree with the main points of the article? I’ve read a lot of what you’ve written, here and elsewhere, and I’d be surprised if you disagree with anything of what I said in the article, excepting the parenthetical remark on Bronzini, and perhaps the claim at the end that the women’s desire for men’s teams to fund women’s teams comes from an “unhinged expectation”. I really thought you’d like this article. (Can you tell, I’m flirting with you, but perhaps inexpertly.)
Bronzini is not cute in any possible world.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 9:02 PM EST up reply actions
Bronzini's "cuteness" is entirely irrelevant
and your comments about her and the “super hot” Elizabeth devalue the rest of your argument. Once you include those comments you’re sending out the message that Hatch is worth listening to and Bronzini is not, simply based on their physical appearance. That actually belittles both of them and means that your arguments are not taken seriously. After I read those comments I completely turned off the whole piece, which is a shame because there’s a debate to be had.
And please, realise/realize? What has British or American English to do with the price of fish?
"These are my principles and if you don't like them....well I have others." Groucho Marx
Pedants' corner.
-ise not necessarily British. OED always gives -ize with -ise as variation. British newspapers etc. tend to use -ise but a random sample of British books pulled from my shelves gave a score of 4 -ize to 1 -ise*. -ise gained in usage when Microsoft Word used to refused to accept -ize as “British” English. Which it no longer does, thank goodness.
(Random sample: books by Virginia Woolf, Muriel Spark, James Kelman, David Peace & WG Sebald – yes, a translation, but a recogizably British one.)
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
obviously, as with all pedantry posts
my typing’s all over the place :-)
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
I thought
-ize was for Greek words and -ise for Latin, or is that just one school?
"Beer helps." -- Ant1.
I was taught that
British can be either -ise or -ize and American is always -ize. I never heard the Greek/Latin thing, but that would make sense.
"These are my principles and if you don't like them....well I have others." Groucho Marx
I too was taught the Greek/Latin rule
but I prefer to ignore it and deliberately use -ise even when technically incorrect. For that reason, if I ever buy a bike produced by a certain well-known manufacturer, I will spend extra to have new decals made so that it becomes a Specialised.
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 18, 2012 6:50 AM EST up reply actions
Interesting.
The fact, I assume, that tedvdw and John Cyclopunk are both British, makes me think there may something to the “ize” for Greek and “ise” for Latin. Upon further reflection . . .
1. It would not explain the differences between American and English spellings, unless you can say the Americans choose to spell words more in accordance with Greek rather than Latin. I don’t know of any evidence for that.
2. The OED lists the French, 16th century word, “realiser” as the origin of the English word, “realize”. The French language morphed from Latin. Of course, Latin had many Greek cognates, either from it’s common origin from Indo-European or from direct Greek influences.
3. The middle LIddle and Scott Greek Lexicon has interesting clues. The word “realize” may come ultimately from the Greek word for a goddess: Rhea, the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, wife of Chronos, “mother of the gods”. But, there is no way you can get from “Rhea” in Greek, to any noun endings with “lize”, or even “ize” Two entries later there is the Greek verb, “rhezw”, i.e., an aspirated rho, epsilon, zeta, omega. And, the meaning of this verb is fairly close to the English verb, to realize. Greek Lexicon: “To do, act, deal”; or, “to do, accomplish, make.” But, I don’t know any Greek conjugation of this verb that would end with, lambda, iota, zeta, epislon, or iota zeta epsilon, or iota, zeta, eta. Yeah, I would be really interseted in the rule that British folks learned for this “ize”/“ise” distinction.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 4:02 AM EST up reply actions
Never heard that.
The only cases where you’re obliged to use -ise are words specifically derived from the French e.g. surprise, compromise. But they’re the only two I can think of off the top of my head.
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
Alright, if it's not clear, let me explain.
1. Elizabeth Hatch is American. She would write “realize”, and not “realise”. Obviously, Pez transcribed her saying “realize” as “realise”, since the writer of the article, Alastair Hamilton, is British—I think. If Hatch were well-educated and quick, speaking to a British interviewer, one might fancifully imagine her saying “realise”, as Pez transcribed it, rather than “realized”. And, if she did, it would make her scorching super hot, so much so, that I’d bow down before her as her slave. There is nothing hotter than smart & sexy. Of course, it’s all silly. “Realise” and “realize” are pronounced exactly the same, so far as I know. So, of course, Elizabeth didn’t say “realise” rather than “realize”. Get it?
2. Wow, civetta is just right. My 1971 compact OED only lists “realize” and not “realise”. In fact, either “realise” is not a variant at all in this edition, or I just can’t make out the small print. I would have thought that the American English differences in spelling developed after the the US was formed, and the British spellings remained the same: “realised”, “analysed”, etc. But, that seems not to be the case. It’s more complicated. Huh. Wow. You learn something new everyday, or at least, every other month, if you aren’t paying attention to anything.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 2:50 AM EST up reply actions
Warning pedantry post coming up
I used to study linguistics many moons ago and I suspect that both versions were originally common usage. Spelling didn’t start to become standardised until the first dictionaries were published. British spellings generally follow Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” (1755), and (mostly) American English spellings follow Noah Webster’s “An American Dictionary of the English Language” (1828).
Webster was keen on spelling reform, especially dropping redundant letters, hence American English drops the “u” in colour/color etc. I’d have to look up where the realise/realize split occurred (assuming it’s traceable). Could have been that Webster had to two versions to chose from and decided that “ize” made more sense.
I remember my old professor telling us that if we could hear Shakespeare speak, he would probably sound American, in fact he pinned it down to particular accent. I forget exactly where it was, but I think that it was somewhere in Maine.
Sorry – I’m a bit of an anorak on this topic. I will now shut up and crawl back into my corner.
"These are my principles and if you don't like them....well I have others." Groucho Marx
It doesn't matter.
Use whichever you like.
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
That is exactly the problem.
Why should I like one more than the other? So how to choose?
(One such issue is no great deal, but this is a general difficulty of learning a language well.)
Webster vs Johnson
Webster had a far bigger impact on the American language than Johnson did on the English.
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
& what do you know....
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
Nice.
I forgot about both dictionaries. I’ve looked at both, like 20 years ago. Likely the differences between British and American spellings originate in both. And your point about a lack of standardization in spelling is just right, now that I think of all the spelling variants I’ve seen in at least early colonial American writing. And, I too, have been told that Shakespearean English would sound somewhat American. You’ve got some knowledge on these matters.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 20, 2012 3:19 AM EST up reply actions
It's just false
that my comment on Bronzini or my calling Elizabeth Hatch super hot devalues any argument that I may have inadvertently made in that post. An argument is good simply if the premises, if true, logically support the conclusion and the premises are true. My personal comments about these women in no way provide any evidence or reason for thinking that any argument I may have inadvertently made is invalid or has a false premise.
Sigh. You, honestly didn’t read my post well, or else you wouldn’t say what you did. And, you pretty much admitted you didn’t.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 18, 2012 9:13 PM EST up reply actions
It doesn't intrinsically devalue your argument.
It does make you sound like a jerk. It’s then up to everyone else to decide whether they care enough about what you think, given that you don’t mind being taken for a jerk, to wade through your essay.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Oh, good, spot on.
1. It shouldn’t make me sound like a jerk, honestly. If charity was given to my article, then I wouldn’t sound like a jerk.
2. But, maybe I deserve it. I came on this site some months ago, having fun, blasting away, calling women’s cycling boring and slow. Well, that’s what they say . . . first impressions. That may be some real wisdom.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 1:51 AM EST up reply actions
That's just false.
My parenthetical comment about Bronzini, as well as calling Liz Hatch “super hot”, do not in any way devalue the rest of my argument. If, I inadvertently, offered an argument, and I don’t recall that I did, since I was fairly toasted writing the thing, the only way any argument would be devalued is if the logic of the argument, i.e., the validity or cogency of the argument, was undermined by claiming that Bronzini should grow her hair out, or that Liz Hatch is super hot. But neither claim could show that any argument I may have offered is invalid or fails to be cogent. Moreover, neither claim could show that any premise in an argument I offered would be false, since, so far as I can tell, reading over the article once again, and again quite toasted, no premise in any possible argument I offered was the negation of either of those claims.
And, finally, this remark, “And please, realise/realize? What has British or American English to do with the price of fish?” just indicates you are not reading what I wrote very well. Elizabeth Hatch is American. If she were to write, “realise”, she would write it with a “z”, rather than an “s”. That’s the way Americans spell the word. But, Pez, transcribed her spoken American English into British English, by representing Liz as saying, “realise”. Now, don’t you get the comment? If you can’t figure out it form here . . . Sigh.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 12:07 AM EST up reply actions
Yikes.
I’ve repeated the same sentiment twice Sorry.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 12:08 AM EST up reply actions
in my opinion
you chose a really really really bad time and place to make that sort of comment (bronzini, and to a lesser extent, hatch). That one line just sticks out like a sore thumb and turns attention away from the meat of your article. You can maybe make that sort of comment in a chatty live thread and say BFD, but it really didn’t help your piece here.
People who care about cycling, regardless of the gender of the rider?
Yes, that’s a super-tough audience to encounter on a cycling fan site. Never would have expected to find something like that, here.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Hmmphff.
I might have reply. But . . . I’ll give way, given the resistance.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 2:54 AM EST up reply actions
I think the Hatch comment you could have totally gotten away with – it was obviously not serious and anyway was positive (granted, there’s always going to be someone …). The Bronzini comment was negative though and just came across as mean. Perhaps you didn’t intend it to come across the way it did, but negativity of any sort and especially personal negativity, has a way of doing that.
I think the point is...
…that when you make a post about “women’s issues”, and then in that same post objectify, sexualise and belittle the women you’re talking about – particularly when you not only do so positively through sexualised praise, but negatively, through sexualised criticism (and there’s another form of entitlement – the idea that a World Champion should give a shit about whether Le Sprinteur wants to have sex with her or not, let alone change her behaviour to appeal to him more) – you undermine everything else you say (by implying that it’s OK to be patronising and demeaning to women in general, so long as you’re not Pat McQuaid), and you offend many of the people who might be most keen to support you.
[Also, since you’ve raised it, Bronzini IS cute. In some photographs, anyway, others do make her look too male. And her hair is beautiful, I love it. You may not be into gamines, but it’s hardly a rare preference!]
Lecture notes from a class you took in 1972?
I had really thought that we—I guess, those of us raised and educated in West in the last couple of decades—had gotten past this Triassic era, dinosaur talk about the relationship between men and women. But, the responses to my post make me think otherwise, unfortunately.
I often “sexualise” women, since I’m a man, and I find women interesting because of their sexuality. No duh. Sometimes, I express my attitudes to the sexuality of women in public. Big deal. Regarding women as sexual beings is in no way demeaning or objectifying. That’s dinosaur talk. I grew up in the aftermath of the feminist revolution. I watched my mother fend for herself on her own raising two children, one of which was me. I’ve had my ass handed to me on a bike by my little sister, and recently by some teenage girls who made me look like a buffoon climbing. I’ll not say much more about this, but I’ve been around some of the smartest, most capable women on the planet in a certain very prestigious US educational institution. I just do not need to qualify my credentials for judging women on the basis of their true merits. I think I can do it pretty well, maybe a lot better than many those here who’ve replied so sanctimoniously.
I thought I showed every women I mentioned in that post due, and high, respect. I took Bronzini’s remark that she would not recommend cycling to women, very seriously. I didn’t call her hysterical, or overwrought, as I suspect some in the UCI might. I took her to comment to be authentic and truly indicative of the attitudes of many women in the women’s peloton, and wrote seriously on the basis of that. I am, however, a little twinged about a hint of self-pity in her remarks, and noted it by saying that I’m not so sympathetic with her plight in particular, since she makes a lot more than I do. (And, well, the comment about her unattractive, boyish looks was off-hand, quick, and no doubt the result of impish impulses I do have. Sometimes I find blog sites boring and like to stir things up. I’ll not apologize for it, but if it’s not wanted here—hehe, and it seems it is not—I’ll either move on or censure myself. Not sure what I’d choose here. I planned on writing an article on Title IX and its relationship to women’s cycling. And, frankly, under various handles on different sites, I have played a hand in driving a lot of the recent blog discussion of women’s cycling. The smart women, I think, would see that in the end it is nothing but good for women’s cycling.)
How on earth does calling Elizabeth Hatch super hot belittle Elizabeth Hatch? You can only say that if you believed that my finding Hatch very attractive, like, oh, just about any man that knows anything about women’s cycling, negated any estimation for her as an autonomous, intelligent human being. And, how can you say that? I gave Hatch front and center in expressing the unhappy attitudes of women cycling. I made her the first and foremost representative of the frustration in the women’s peleton. And, I certainly did not do it because she’s super hot. I did it, because her remarks are the most explicit and intelligible of any woman who has spoken in public on the issue. No woman has spoken as thoroughly as Hatch has in public. Maybe the belittling is done on your part, Wastrel, and you others who criticized me for calling Hatch super hot, when you don’t take her seriously. I took her seriously. I’ve followed Hatch’s story for sometime. That girl has been on her own since she was a teenager. Her life has not been easy. When I found out she got a pro ride, or at least what I thought was a pro ride, I was like, Absolutely cool, way to go Liz. Turns out is wasn’t as good a deal as I thought, or maybe she thought either.
Why call her super hot at all? Well, probably because of this. I can’t exactly say. I wrote lots of that article fairly quickly. But, I’ve had this in the back of my mind for some time. One way women cyclists can promote their sport is by exploiting their sexuality. Women’s tennis is often lauded by women as an equitable relationship between men and women in pro sports. But, let’s face it, women’s tennis has gotten so popular among all, importantly, because of many women exploiting, playing up, flirting with, their own sexuality. Is that really a problem? For you Ankylosaurses out there, consider this. If they’re exploiting their own sexuality for their own authentic aims and goals, then what is the problem? If they gain power and wealth by doing that, what is the problem? I think I mentioned that Hatch is super hot because I had in the back of my mind that it was a loss to women’s cycling that Hatch has left, because she is one who can bring interest to the sport from men (and perhaps women as well), because she is super hot.
Last note. Elizabeth Hatch is just super hot. It’s an objective fact. Stating objective facts ought never require justification.
Men have been exploiting sexuality for ages. Do you think the NFL sent a memo to Tom Brady, telling him to stop appearing in public to be photographed with Gisele Bundchen, lest it “sexualise” NFL athletes? Men’s pro sports have exploited the sexiness of its athletes for a long time. I know two women who were avid Pittsburgh Steelers fans because they found Ben Roethlisberger super hot. I hope they don’t now, since there’s plenty of evidence that he’s a rapist. Nevertheless, sex sells, and in this age of equality, women should try it too with no shame or regret, if it gets them what they want.
Lastly, for you dinosaurs, who are still caught up in the rhetoric and the modes of thinking of 1972, I suggest you go out and talk to the young women you know. They are smart, and they are confident, and they going to exploit both their own sexuality and their intelligence and capability at the same time. And, well, when I come across it, . . . oh boy . . .it’s exciting.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 18, 2012 11:33 PM EST up reply actions
How is who's *hot* an objective fact, precisely?? :-|
Genuine question.
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
Heh. There's a bit of rhetoric in my remark.
But, there are certainly objective aspects to a person’s hotness. Whether hotness is completely objective, I’ll not dive into it. But, consider that certain shapes and proportions of the bodies either sex, do illicit certain reactions from other people. I’d say the relationship between the two is fairly objective. You could likely do scientific work on it. I’d not be surprised if such has been done. I’d also not be surprised if hotness were not reducible at least in part to evolutionary facts about human beings.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 20, 2012 3:33 AM EST up reply actions
Really . . .
BFD. Do you agree or disagree with the main points of the article?
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 16, 2012 8:57 PM EST up reply actions
I stopped reading at the Bronzini part.
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 17, 2012 12:09 PM EST up reply actions
yep lost me with trivial sexualizations.
notice I used a z there in my made up word.?
~ The photographer formerly known as Fred
by Christopher See on Jan 17, 2012 2:54 PM EST up reply actions
What can I say.
You are fascinated by the trivial. It’s good that recognise that.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 3:06 AM EST up reply actions
Actually, no, I don't have to gratify you by engaging with your argument.
(Which is also weak on its merits, and boring, and badly written, and too long.)
You don’t get to decide who’s hot, and you don’t get to assign your writing to other people as an assignment. Sorry, you bore me now. So I’m going to read what other people write, instead.
If you want to be read, then be readable. If you want people to engage, be engaging.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Wow. I'm not after gratification, so far as I know.
Where is the article weak on its merits? What’s so poor in the writing, or boring? Oh, you, you, JFS_PGH, are perhaps the best evidence for the truth of my article. Honestly. Note how it’s starts. “Supposing truth is a women—what then?” Is it then not then not the case that men have been inexpert at winning your heart?
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 3:05 AM EST up reply actions
Well, the evidence, JFS_PGH, suggests
that the only reason my article isn’t read sincerely, is because I said that Bronzini should grow her hair out.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 3:08 AM EST up reply actions
your article isn't read sincerely because it's too long
and convoluted.
Also as JFS points out, it is possible to disagree with your basic point (as I have already done below) about how to judge “progress” for women’s professional cycling.
And, finally, revealing the extent to which you judge women professional cyclists on your perceptions of their “hotitude” might be a perfectly valid personal criteria for you, but publicizing it in the manner that you did disqualifies your argument because it undercuts your pretensions to analysis of the sporting and business components of the problem.
Whatever her hair-length, whatever her salary, Bronzini has the power and skill to be at the front of a race at the end. Ms. Hatch frequently got dropped in US criteriums. Draw your own conclusions about why she took up a roster spot . . .
Finally, the relevant comparison is not how much Ms. Bronzini makes compared to you (and, btw, I was paid a max of $12k as a grad. student. Although that was supplemented with good health insurance, even in the 90s that was only a living wage if you think living on ramen is a fine life).. The relevant comparison is how much does Ms. Bronzini make compared to comparable male riders.
then have to set the relevant criteria for
The relevant comparison is how much does Ms. Bronzini make compared to comparable male riders
to frame the debate. Is is as simple as male v female? Where the answer is the two respective world road champions have a huge income disparity.
If you choose the criterion of TV coverage as having relevance to potential earning power/income generation (c/f starring in a play on broadway/off broadway kind of way) – then the amount of womens cycling that comes across the eurosport/sporza/rai/france3 screens is about the same as the amount of espoir cycling that is shown – and the disparity between the womens WC and the U23 WC is a lot narrower as “comparable” riders.
Pick a different criterion and the answer changes again, and again.
Hmm.
1. From the start to the end, the basic point was that the UCI is not good at communicating with it’s women road racers. I don’t even see that I’ve made any judgment about how to measure the progress of women’s cycling.
2. Calling for Bronzini to grow her hair out, and calling Hatch “super hot”, does not disqualify the argument for the main point. There’s only two ways to disqualify an argument as successful. 1. Either a premise is false, or 2., the logic of the argument is faulty. Calling for Bronzini to grow her hair out, and calling Hatch “super hot” neither shows a premise is false or the logic of the argument for the main point is faulty.
Wow, there’s a tendency among many at this site to impugn the motives of the messenger, rather than the truth or logic of the message. That’s very disappointed, but frankly, not unexpected. How easy, easy it is to grapple with argument to simply find reasons to impugn the motives of the arguer. The motives, biases, and prejudices of human beings are difficult things to pin down, and the empirical evidence for such is usually consistent with a wide variety of motives. Frankly, impugning the motives of other human beings when they are offering argument—and again, I didn’t really take myself to be offering any serious argument—is just LAZY.
3. R Mc: “Whatever her hair-length, whatever her salary, Bronzini has the power and skill to be at the front of a race at the end. Ms. Hatch frequently got dropped in US criteriums. Draw your own conclusions about why she took up a roster spot . .”
Well, Jesus. What’s the point of this? So, what? Hatch is not the best women racer on the planet—she was a domestique and never pretending to be anything else, and from what I’ve read she was a loyal and hard working domestique—so, what she says about racing and the position of women in women’s pro racing is to be dismissed? Or, perhaps you dismissing her because she’s super hot.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 20, 2012 3:53 AM EST up reply actions
regardless of the merits of the bronzini and hatch remarks
it is undeniable they have led to a preponderence of comments that have nothing really to do with the title of the thread or the rest of your post, distracted debate away from the same, and done little to advance any of your arguments for or against the current status quo, and for that reason alone are probably best judged as misguided.
by andrewp on Jan 20, 2012 4:22 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
i, for one, love women's racing
i would like to see more of it. just about every aspect of the sport is appealing. that being said, i also understand how some people might not care about as much as men’s cycling, right or wrong. and that’s the problem, until you get more eyeballs watching, there won’t be much money to pay the riders. now how you go about that (forcing men’s teams to sponsor a women’s, races to get bi-sexual…) will probably be controversial. now i love me some arguing, but with a topic like this one i doubt there’s any position you can take where you won’t end up being accused of being sexist. the problem is only made worse by the fact that probably most of us here have never really studied women’s issues, or sex equality matters or whatever, while others have. a less experience person can make a well-intententioned point and have it come around and bite them in the ass when someone with more experience has seen that argument before and knows it to be flawed for some less than obvious reason.
so, you folks have fun discussing this, i’ll be playing it safe in the other threads.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
presciant1
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
Eh, don't think anyone got trashed for holding a position.
Unless “eek, women with short hair make my weenie shrivel” counts as a position (fetal, perhaps?). I like the idea of top women occasionally riding mens races (we’d see them more that way). I like the idea of women’s races getting more funding (we’d see them more that way). I feel that salaries and racing options are, if not artificially low, at least as low as not-so-benign neglect can make them.
If you’d rather let the sport grow organically? If you don’t find that the salaries are embarrassingly low? If you’d rather see more helmet cams and DIY coverage? Those are all perfectly acceptable positions, too.
Heck, you can even sexualize without being sexist. Kinda wish there were more women’s cobbles races because you like to watch the bounce? That’s a personal reaction…and so long as you own it (rather than trying to pass it off as a statement of fact), nobody could jump on you for it. God knows we’re not shy about sharing all kinds of favorite stuff. But mistaking your likes for “how the universe works,” that can get icky fast.
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
Heh. Did I not own it outrightly.
What’s this comment about, honestly?
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 3:11 AM EST up reply actions
not stepping in it :)
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
There are loads of sports where it would be unthinkable to hold a men only event
Hell, you couldn’t hold a round of the Track World Cup and not invite the Women.
At the least, McQuaid could certainly indicate that catering for the women would look good on your application to join the Pro Tour, for both races and teams.
by William H on Jan 16, 2012 6:12 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
it's easy to say
that women’s cycling should develop financially through grass roots, but i think that if women’s cycling ever does really start to approach men’s cycling, it will not come through grass root development, but rather conscious actions to make it happen in the name of equality. Where that will come from is another question. I would think one major problem is the fact that men’s cycling seems to be on such tenuous footing, it would not be surprising to see women’s cycling having a really hard time getting going.
Another factor is the complication of holding races on public roads and the costs that go into all of that, including the cost of filming the race. (as compared to other sports held in a stadium of some sort)
I don't think it's possible
… to persuade millions of people to become interest in a new sport just by telling them that they should because of “equality”. If there isn’t grassroots support, there’s nothing the authorities can do to make a difference.
To take an example: given how little cycling there is on TV in most countries, how readily do you think private media networks would take to showing two versions of every race, even if both versions were obligatory? [And could women’s cycling even sustain as many races as men’s cycling, with a shallower pool of riders?] And without that TV coverage, how will you bring in more money? Even at the site of the race, how can you force people to turn up early to watch women’s races? If there were demand for more women’s races, there would be more women’s races. [Of course, somebody (teams, the UCI, governments) could subsidise demand for women’s races – that might be a good idea – but they can’t just create that demand through regulation.
you don't have to force anyone to show up,
and you don’t try to convince them to like the race in the name of equality (what ridiculous ideas!). I was saying the initial efforts to promote the sport might be done in the name of equality – it doesn’t mean you promote it that way or try to force it on people. But i think if you hold the races, publicize them – especially for things like a women’s ronde or women’s fleche – i believe people will show up and watch. Same for telly. Once they put it on the tv and the television stations promote it and you have stars and so on, well it takes on a life of its own. And i wasn’t thinking at all of any sort of regulation.
by yeehoo on Jan 17, 2012 8:27 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
A good point.
And one those women who are calling for a Title IX revolution in women’s cycling often make. I was hoping to write on this, but . . . I don’t know.
by Le Sprinteur on Jan 19, 2012 3:13 AM EST up reply actions
this is a really tangled issue
because it traces back to people’s gender, sexual, and competitive notions in recursive feedback loops.
Add to that a totally screwed up “business” model, and several possible ways of exploiting that model: e.g. I think Liz Hatch, whatever she might be like as an actual human being, has taken what might be called the Kournikova route to get attention, and while it makes sense to do so, I don’t respect it.
[there’s a bunch of discussion that should go here about other ways to “be” a woman professional cyclist, but I’ll skip them].
I don’t measure “progress” for women’s pro cycling by how many pseudo-pro riders or teams there are scrapping around to get to poorly organized and promoted events. It creates a negative feedback loop. I’d prefer vastly fewer, but adequately compensated racers, and a smaller, but properly promoted, racing calendar.
Changing the attitudes with which potential cycling fans perceive women’s racing is really a separate issue, but it’s an important one. I think the key word in that phrase, though, is “potential,” because I’d bet that there’s a niche of fans who are not currently fans of pro cycling who could be brought to be fans of women’s pro cycling. I think Marianne Vos, Clara Hughes or Evelyn Stevens, or Emma Pooley (and several other riders) are excellent ambassadors to this type of fan: 15-50 years old, probably a woman, fitness oriented, but totally unaware of things like “the rules.” The traditions etc. don’t matter to them, the racing, and the attitude of the racers does.
From a spectator's point of view
what’s with the “team” thing? Why should I care if Diadora Pasta Zara beats Lotto Honda? How do team sponsorships translate to more cycling fans? Practically every other team sport is identified with some form of a community, Manchester United, FC Barcelona, New York Yankees, with which fans can identify. If I’m a sponsor, what’s in it for me? How is my expenditure on the team going to affect my bottom line? Or is it just a strange form of charity? The musical chairs with men’s teams and sponsors isn’t exactly a sign of success, either. The ladies are even farther behind. There’s a good chance that women’s cycling simply can’t prosper in the present paradigm. The never-ending whining about the lack of television coverage for women’s races simply sounds like fans wanting free entertainment. It’s time somebody started defining the problem and re-configuring the sport.
I looked long and hard at a box of grape nuts today.
Didn’t actually buy it. But I have not even considered ingesting grape nuts for the last decade.
I also go to the Chipotle, rather than the Baja Fresh (same block). And the GPS in my car is a garmin (even if I’m too cheap to get a dedicated one for the bike). I googled Rabobank when I needed a bank account in CA (didn’t work, closest one was ~50 miles from anywhere I’d have found convenient). My phone’s now T-mobile, even. I’m not known for being unusually malleable or suggestible. So (OK, N=1) the sponsorship thing looks be working (grape nuts?! really?!?), on some level, and it in fact seems to have some degree of persistence (witness T mobile).
"It is unfortunate that the Wall is not plugged in correctly."
The way I see it...
…the main issue here is “what the hell are grape nuts?”
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 19, 2012 5:01 AM EST up reply actions
it's a breakfast cereal
what the hell it has to do with cycling is a mystery to me – must be some team associated though.
I have two Garmins
one in the car, and the other a hand held for walking climbing etc. The handheld GPS is much better than the other one to be honest. Keeps trying to send me over cliffs. I’ve got T-Mobile for my handy, but Rabobank don’t have any branches here (I did once look).
I like grape nuts, but can’t get hold of them.
"These are my principles and if you don't like them....well I have others." Groucho Marx
What about Saxobank?
Or Festina? Or Milram? Or Webcor Builders? Had them build anything for you lately? You’re probably still getting mail courtesy of the US Postal Service, but only because they sponsored a bike team. Eaten a Jazz Apple today? With Peanut Butter & Company product on it? Where’d you get your hearing aid?
by chuck martel on Jan 19, 2012 12:03 PM EST up reply actions
The "community" of Manchester Utd fans??
Oh the irony.
Being a proper football fan with a proper sense of community is actually a lot like being a women’s cycling fan.
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
general sponsorship issues aside
is unhelpful in a way for sponsors of womens trade teams that in the two biggest cycling events for women this year (worlds and olympics) – the two races that are guaranteed to be televised widely live – all riders will ride in national team kits and not in their day to day team sponsored kit.
Womens cycling lacks a generally agreed marque event outside of these two one day races to build a narrative around.
Chipotle never used it's connection to cycling to promote its products.
In its stores or anywhere else except on rider kits. Check out Garmin’s website. It’s all about golf. Rabobank specializes in agricultural financing, for all of you towing a corn picker across the field with your Cervelo R5ca. No doubt DeutcheTelecom will be happy to hear that at least one person remembers that they once sponsored a bike team but they’re more concerned that so many of their riders are remembered as consumers of pharmaceuticals.
Rabobank started out in agricultural financing, a long time ago
but is just a general bank now (albeit in co-op form).
"Beer helps." -- Ant1.
Nintendo started out in the 19th Century making playing cards
A bit off-topic, I know, but mildly interesting.
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 19, 2012 2:56 PM EST up reply actions
kawasaki made sewing machines
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
Really?
Brilliant. I think I’ll just hop on my Singer motorbike…
"I’m hoping for the Mortirolo-Gavia combination, then we can ride down to Bormio for ice cream." Emma Pooley on the Giro Donne
or so i've heard
although a lot of those japanese conglomerates have probably built a little of everything over the years.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
Very true. Nintendo also sold rice and ran “love hotels” for a while.
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 19, 2012 4:16 PM EST up reply actions
So did James Starley, who invented all sorts of bicycle stuff and the differential gear (his nephew, John Kemp Starley, invented the Rover Safety Bicycle – the first “modern” bike).
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 19, 2012 4:15 PM EST up reply actions
Sewing machines, that is; he didn’t sell rice and run love hotels.
I saw a baby that looked like Cadel Evans the other day...
by John Cyclopunk on Jan 19, 2012 4:17 PM EST up reply actions
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