Every four years, the best of the best althetes come together and compete to see who is the best of the best of the best, and we get to watch it all go down from home. Ahh, the Olympics.
This year, sexism has been extremely prevalent in the coverage of the Olympics. Most people are talking about the sexism towards female olympians, but what almost nobody has raised a question about is the sexism towards men at the Olympics. Let me explain where I first noticed this:
I watch and read Cosmopolitan's Discover Snapchat Story almost every day. When the Olympics began, I noticed a shocking increase in posts about "hot guys," especially the olympian kind. Every day, Cosmo posts an "Olympic Hottie Of The Day" that pictures a shirtless male olympian and his name. In addition to the Hottie Of The Day one day, there was an article titled, "Why It's OK To Objectify Men's Bulges." Infuriated, I took it upon myself to Google "male olympians" to see what came up. Here's what came up:
Seriously? Suggested searches at the bottom of the page include, "hottest male olympians 2016" and "male greek gods." What?! Why?!
I wondered if the sexualization of women at the Olympics was equally as obvious with a similar Google search. Pictured below are the search results.
Suggested searches include "famous female olympians," "female olympians names" and "female greek gods." While this search was not much better than the male olympian search, not every title includes the word "hot" or "hottest," which makes it slightly less bad in my eyes.
It has always bothered me to hear people complain about the objectification and over sexualization of women, but then blatantly objectify and over sexualize men. If we are upset about objectifying women, then isn't it slightly hypocritical to unapologetically objectify men? If we complain about the way media portrays women, why don't we bat an eye when men are presented in the same way? It is not fair to complain about something that is happening to us when we are actively doing it to someone else.
The fight for equality is just that, the fight for equality. It is not the fight for women to be treated with respect and dignity while reserving the right to degrade men. Please remember that as the Olympic games continue.
