Sunday, 22 December 2024


Subject: Image is everything.
 
There is no avoiding the fact that women are overtaking men in the media arena.
Watching the boat race, a race between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge on the river Themes was,  when I was growing up, the outside broadcast of the year, an example not only of the physical endurance between the crews but also a view into the elitism of university life and one of the traditional markers in our society. These young men paraded in front of us were doing esoteric studies such as the classics which meant that they had to master Greek and Latin.
In our everyday lives language was limited to our own version of English, some versions were just as foreign sounding  and the mystery of learning a language which was no longer used other than being able to translate directly the documents written in the age of Greek and Roman achievement and had become the foundation of of modern philosophical reasoning and as an offshoot a foundation for a modern language, Latin was the basis for much of the structure of modern thought.
Academic achievement was also the foundation of these amateur rowers and the early seed of BBC outside broadcasting somehow leant an allure to these slim boats buffeted as they were by the river currents and tidal waves created by the current as the tide turned. John Snagg was the voice in those days of the boat race as he counted the stroke pattern of each boat. On one memorable occasion, his unflustered voice described the sinking of one boat as the crew and boat went underwater with its crew still rowing.
It was not until the 1960s that women began to share the day with the men and in their own way enlivened the racing with the contrast. So what in my day was a men's race has turned around into being for all intents and purposes a women's day with media coverage now being predominantly brought to us by women.
It's the same in football and in rugby, motorcycling, horse racing the and athletics females on the touch line and in the studio  commentary box have taken over. The panels who group together in the studio to give their post mortem on the game are now pre-eminently women even though there is no contest in the game on the field. It's as though in our desire to level up we have felt the need to dissuade the men of the need for their presence even when only men are playing.
Some would say this opinion is based on misogyny or an unwillingness to move with the times but as with any change there are winners and losers and seeing great players flanked by women who would not have made the team but now are accepted as pundits with equal say.

Is it all a matter of glamour and sex appeal and where content takes second place to presentation. If that’s the case we men are on a hiding to nothing. 

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