The Horror.
Bob Ballard is a veteran sports announcer with the BBC who has reported on sports since the mid- 1980s. He’s been involved in covering several Olympic games. However, a wan sexist joke he uttered that would have been standard fair on sitcoms in the 1960s got him sacked from the Paris Olympics broadcast.
After the women’s 4×100 meter freestyle relay that ended with a gold for Team Australia, Ballard felt compelled to comment on the team’s delay leaving the Paris Aquatic Centre. “Well, the women just finishing off. You know what women are like, hanging around, doing their makeup,” Ballard said. Immediately his female broadcasting partner Lizzie Simmonds, a former Olympian and his Eurosport co-host, struck. “Outrageous, Bob,” she said. “Some of the men are doing that as well.” Ballard laughed.
Eurosport, which distributes the Olympic broadcast in Europe (owned by the same company that now owns CNN) confirmed that the comment caused Ballard’s Olympics to be terminated. “We can confirm that Bob Ballard has been removed from our commentary roster with immediate effect,” it said in a statement this week.
Take THAT, insufficiently female athlete-extolling pig at the Parity Olympics!
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Was Ballard’s dismissal, fair, proportional and just?
Naturally, the commentator apologized later, saying, “The comments I made during the Australian freestyle relay victory ceremony on Saturday have caused some offense. It was never my intention to upset or belittle anyone and, if I did, I apologize. I am a massive advocate of women’s sport. I shall miss the Eurosport team, dearly and wish them all the best for the rest of the Olympics.”
Well, a Level 9 apology wasn’t going to get his job back. At least he didn’t say that the silly comment didn’t express “who he was.”
Because the Olympics have to be all about politics now (now meaning forever, at least since Hitler was smacked down by Jesse Owens), Ballard’s recycling of a moldy female stereotype was certainly ill-timed for an event that has been dubbed “the parity Olympics.” 5630 male athletes and 5416 female athletes will compete in Paris, meaning numerical parity has almost been attained. This has apparently been a longtime goal, so now that it has been reached (well, close enough for Olympic horseshoes), the woke squad is moving on to other concerns, like male photographers “objectifying attractive female competitors” and mild sexist jokes. If a female commentator makes an equivalently lame quip about, say, male locker room talk or guys drinking too much beer, do you think that would result in a sacking? Do men get in a huff over such things?
If women are ready for “parity,” then it’s time they show the ability to roll their eyes at the dated attitudes of old guys like Ballard, gently mock them, and not throw a fit. Simmonds’ rebuke was excessive: “outrageous” would have been appropriate if Ballard had advocated that the Australian women should be cooking and having babies rather than swimming.
My view is that this was more woke bullying, pandering to a powerful interest group, and cancel culture at work. The fair and just handling of the situation, once Simmons unnecessarily escalated it, would have been to warn Ballard and let it go at that. His long career should have at least earned him one pass on a misconceived ad lib. The Golden Rule applies, or should. Ironically, Simmons acted out one negative feminist stereotype by her reaction to an archaic gender stereotype:
One more thing: Grace loved a popular TED talk about how stereotypes were problematical because they were incomplete, not because they weren’t based on reality. Many women still drive men crazy taking exorbitant amounts of time preparing to go out in public: it was the subject of quite a few arguments in our house over 43 years, especially when Grace’s preparations made us late for an event.
Ethics Alarms 
How’d you find that photo of virtually every girl I knew in college? Particularly my three years girlfriend who dropped me like a rock, without explanation or apology to this day. But speaking of stereotypes, I’ve come to the conclusion women do not apologize, certainly never for their behavior vis-a-vis guys.
If only women were allowed to be made fun of, then I’d say the joke was in bad taste, but he included men too, and men get bashed in pop culture all the time. Contrast Lizzie’s reaction with Caitlin Clark on SNL:
As I read through this, I was thinking about Grace’s comment. I am glad you brought it up.
My first reaction was that, yes, it was a stupid thing to say and he should have known enough not to say stupid things (though I typically don’t realize I am saying something stupid until right after I finish saying it).
Then, I thought he needed to be fired because he was saying something sexist and the broadcaster needed to respond.
Then, I thought about Grace’s comment and had to ask myself: Is what he said true? If it is true, he should not be penalized for saying something true. Now, of course, per Grace, generalizations are not “true” in the sense that there are no exceptions to them; there are always exceptions (usually). So, yes, generally, women take longer to get ready to go anywhere. Mrs. Gory needs 45 minutes of lead time before she can go anywhere. Me, I can be half way to work before I am even fully awake. And, it is not as if there is anything wrong with that. But, if there is not anything wrong with that, why is there anything wrong with saying that.
So, I think I come down to this: he should have said, “Lighten up, it’s a harmless joke,” which is a little more diplomatic than “Bite Me!”
As for the apology, I am fine with it; a fake apology for a fake injury.
-Jut
Your comment would have made Grace very happy. Once she saw that TED Talk, she shared the video with everyone she could, and was convinced hat it was an important analysis. And Grace, once she got a grip on something, never let go. You have no idea…
Reminded me of this I heard somewhere: “If your wife says she’ll be ready in 5 minutes, there is no reason to remind her every half hour.”
Kind of reminds me of the punchline to the joke about an Irishman who texts his wife, “I’m at the pub with the boys. If I am not home in 20 minutes, read this text again.”
-Jut
Aw man…that triggered it. Here you go: Brad Paisley’s song-selection prowess, Don Sampson’s incomparable mastery of lyric, and a touch of Andy Griffith’s legacy…
I think this song is another “rain-maker”.
I’m sorry, but I’ve earned a right to comment on women’s delays, with the amount of my life I’ve spent waiting on my mother, my wife, and now my daughter. I’ve told my wife that of she dies first, I’m going to have them wheel the casket into the funeral 15 minutes after the stated start time, and I have half a mind to actually do it.
“If a female commentator makes an equivalently lame quip about, say, male locker room talk or guys drinking too much beer, do you think that would result in a sacking? Do men get in a huff over such things?”
Women will say grow a pair or put your big boy pants on. That is what will happen. Men have been trained to not get into a huff over such things or they will risk being emasculated. Women know this and they use it to their advantage. I would recommend that men simply respond by saying “if I had said something like that it could get me fired” and let it go at that.
yet, appaantly over in the boxing ring thye are having trouble with gender testing rules. It would seem to me the rule could be simplfied. if there are testicles and penises, the gender has been proveen to be male, therefore they should not be in the boxing ring with those folks endowed with vaginas, overies, and uteri.
deacondan86 – a post surgical trans female who has been through puberty probably still has a biological advantage over a natural born female. I am all for returning to the bad old days of sex testing to protect natural women and ensure fairness. Where the hell are the militant feminists when you need them?
I am woman, hear me roar.
Except when it’s more convenient to be fragile and to play the victim card. Any woman who is truly offended by this mild joke can bite me. We didn’t blaze the trails and work our butts off doing double duty at home and on the job so that today’s snowflakes can wallow in anxiety and sensitivity.
I didn’t see the exchange but if the rejoinder about men doing that, too was delivered in a light-hearted manner, seems to me there was tit-for-tat and everyone should have let it go. Shame on the Olympic and network execs.
BTW, my husband takes 10 minutes to my 45 – I don’t leave the house without makeup and fluffed hair so as not to frighten small children.
An unusual number of comments are making me laugh today. Thanks, I need it.