"It's Not Because I'm Sexy" Broadcaster Demands Men and Women to Be Filmed Equally [Paris Olympics]

Efforts to Break 'Sexism' Highlighting Specific Body Parts of Female Athletes
"Competing in the Olympics as Elite Athletes, Not for Being Sexy"

As the 2024 Paris Olympics are recorded as the first-ever 'Gender Equality Olympics,' the official Olympic broadcaster has tasked camera operators to film male and female athletes equally. The intention is to prevent discriminatory filming and broadcasting that highlights specific body parts of female athletes.

On the 26th (local time), at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Marie-Jos? P?rec (left), a former French female track and field athlete, and Teddy Riner, a male judo athlete, stood after lighting the Olympic flame.
[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

According to AFP on the 29th, the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), responsible for Olympic coverage, recently updated its internal guidelines to reflect this policy. The guidelines urge caution to ensure that stereotypes and gender discrimination do not seep into broadcasts, especially since most of OBS's camera operators are male.

OBS CEO Ianis Exarchos pointed out during a meeting with reporters that "Unfortunately, in some events, camera operators still capture male and female athletes differently, which allows stereotypes and gender discrimination against female athletes to persist." He assessed that these issues arise from the 'unconscious biases' of camera operators and broadcast personnel. He emphasized, "Female athletes are not at the Olympics because they are more attractive or sexy than others. They are there as elite athletes."

OBS also increased the number of female commentators from 22% at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to 38% by assigning 35 women out of 92 commentator positions. Additionally, before the Olympics, female camera operators received separate training to gain broadcasting technical experience, and 25 of them were deployed on-site.

The official Olympic broadcaster's efforts toward gender equality align with the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) initiatives to host a gender-equal Olympics.

The IOC has emphasized that the gender ratio of athletes participating in this Olympics is perfectly balanced at 50-50, marking a completely gender-equal Olympics. It is regarded as "a new era for women's sports" for the first time in 124 years since women first participated in the Olympics in 1900. When the Olympics were first held in 1896, Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the IOC, prohibited women from competing, so there were no female athletes.

Female athletes first participated in the Olympics at the 1900 Paris Games, the second Olympics, with 22 women competing in five sports including tennis and golf. This number gradually increased, surpassing 10% for the first time at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and reaching the 20% range at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. At the 2012 London Olympics, women made up 44%, and at the previous 2021 Tokyo Olympics, 48%.

For this Olympics, to promote women's sports, the traditionally last Olympic event, the men's marathon, was replaced with the women's marathon. Accordingly, the men's marathon will be held on the 10th of next month, and the women's marathon on the 11th. CEO Exarchos explained, "Sports schedules have historically emphasized men's events. In team sports, the women's finals were held first, followed by the men's finals. Even in sports involving strength and combat, women's events were held in the morning and men's events in the afternoon."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.