The outrage goes on and on

While acknowledging the evidence of sexism during these games, it probably is not as bad as in past events. Slowly but surely there is a consciousness raising (partly through articles like this one) that discrimination based on either sex or colour is wrong.

The Olympic games primarily are held up as a moral as well as physical example to the youth of today to excel and to achieve. the sending of hero messages is encouraged, and the actions of athletes are to be emulated.

However there is a strong undercurrent of bias, and dare I say "questionable behaviour" that is evident, though not highlighted in main stream media with regard to the present London games. 150,000 condoms will be distributed to athletes during the duration of these games - and I wonder what message that sends to our youth and general community. Should that be part of the official role of the Olympic committee?

One would think that, at least, athletes could buy their own!

Jocelynne Scutt's point "That prejudice has no place in sport. That sporting capacities and achievements are valued without 'extra points', superiority or esteem being awarded by reference to sex/gender, race/ethnicity or class/status." is easy to agree with.

And achieving it is not difficult either – and has the advantage in these financially difficult times of halving the cost and number of events, competitors and staff in Olympic competition…

Merely remove the words men's and women's from all events.

Only the 'best' athletes compete.

It seems a fitting next step now that these games represent a long overdue and hard-won milestone as reported by topendsports.com: "In 2012, women's boxing was introduced, resulting in no remaining sports that do not include events for women.

Equality in the available sports is one thing, but in many countries women do not have equal right to participate in sports and the opportunity to participate in the Olympic Games. Prior to the 2012 Olympic in London, three Muslim countries have never before sent a female athlete: Qatar, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia. However, they all bowed to IOC pressure and sent female athletes to London. Now every national Olympic committee has sent women to the Olympic Games."

Do shut up while you're in front Jocelynne, or you may annoy us blokes enough to do something about equality.

As WmTrevor says, we could stop having a special category for the weak, slow athletes called women. Hell if that happened there would only be 2 sports left for you, equestrian & nagging competitions.

We could demand equal use of medical services. We might even demand that mens cancer be given equal funding to womens.

We could stop affirmative action, & make you actually compete for jobs.

Hell we could even reintroduce examinations into the education system, so you could go back to the bottom of the class, & out of universities.

So come off it love, enough is enough. Too much gets boring, & will prove unproductive, if you get our backs really up.

Hear, hear! Let's abolish the reactionary neocolonial apartheid-linked notion of 'women's sports' altogether. Let's end financial discrimination in favour of rich nations, too, by requiring all potential Olympians to be brought up and trained in some deserving Third World nation like Mali. The vicious and heartbreaking inequalities that result from some people being bigger, stronger or faster than others can be dealt with by ensuring that all candidates are the same size and weight and are provided with equal nourishment. That only leaves motivation, which we can control for by reducing the prizes and rewards to zero throughout.

I look forward to the enlightened adoption of all these policies, and the subsequent Non-Discriminatory Olympic Games, where the outcomes will be based entirely on random chance. In fact there will be no need to hold them at all -- a simple lottery drawing will have the same result, and be far cheaper.

>>In the meantime, men compete in five canoeing competitions, whilst the Olympics stages no canoeing competitions for women.<<

Yes it does. Women compete in sprint and slalom canoeing:

http://www.london2012.com/canoe-slalom/
http://www.london2012.com/canoe-sprint/

As far as I know there are only two Olympic sports which are restricted to single gender: rhythmic gymnastics and synchronised swimming. They both exclude men which looks like blatant sexism to me. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - I certainly don't want to watch men's rhythmic gymnastics. But if you were looking for an example of sexism in the Olympics wouldn't it have been wiser to use those two genuine examples instead of spreading easily disprovable misinformation about the canoeing?

Cheers,

Tony