Guidelines on how to film women during the Olympics

Brut India

The official Olympic broadcast service urged its cameraman to film female athletes appropriately. This has led to a conversation on sexism in sports against women.

Transcript

00:00Are women athletes being filmed differently than male athletes during the Olympics?

00:04Paris is the first ever Olympics to have an equal number of male and female athletes competing in the Games.

00:11This meant that sports in which women were competing received the same representation on television broadcasts as men,

00:18but there was still a problem.

00:19The CEO of the Olympic Broadcasting Services, which is the official broadcaster of the Games,

00:25admitted that female athletes were still filmed differently than men with the camera focusing on different parts of their body.

00:33Yanis Ixchous, the chief at the Olympic Broadcasting Services,

00:37said that he had warned camera operators, who were mostly male,

00:41to ensure that they framed female athletes appropriately and even updated filming guidelines.

00:46He said that there was an invisible bias and women athletes were not there because they were sexy or attractive,

00:53but because they were elite athletes.

00:55In some sports, the attire has also sparked conversation about sexism in sports.

01:00Up until two years ago, the bikini was the mandatory garment for women while playing beach volleyball,

01:06whereas men could opt for shorts and a tank top.

01:09In 2021, the Norwegian handball team was fined in the European tournament

01:14because they refused to play the sport with bikini bottoms.

01:17This year, many women opted for leggings or shorts while playing beach volleyball.

01:22One commentator was also fired during the 2024 Olympics

01:26after he made a sexist remark during the live broadcast of the women's freestyle swimming event.

01:31After the event, the male and female athletes were slowly leaving the arena

01:36when Bob Ballard, a commentator for Eurosport, said,

01:39you know how women are, hanging around, doing their makeup.

01:43His comment came under fire and he was fired from the network.

01:47In India, women have long alleged that their sport does not get equal coverage on television as compared to men.

01:54In 2024, chess player Divya Deshmukh spoke about her experience at an international chess tournament,

02:01where the spectators were more focused on her hair, clothes and her accent than her performance.

02:07It has been a long journey for equal representation at the Olympics.

02:11For context, there was a 2% participation of women in the 1900 Olympics in Paris as compared to 50% in 2024.

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