Moments after the US men’s Olympic hockey team won gold in an overtime game against Canada, the team gathered in the locker room and were greeted by FBI director Kash Patel who had President Donald Trump on the phone.
A controversy arose when, after congratulating the team and inviting them to his State of the Union address, Trump said “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team… [if I don’t] I do believe probably I would be impeached.” Most of the men’s team laughed, with only five declining his invitation to visit the White House and attend the State of the Union. His comment, which clearly demeaned the women’s team, was in incredibly poor taste, especially considering the women’s team had also just won gold over Canada in an overtime game as well. Their success was just as exciting as the men’s, but the President only chose one team to congratulate.
Moments like this, jokes made at the expense of women, have become so incredibly prominent in our society that it has almost become accepted. It certainly is, to the point where the President of our country can make a blatantly misogynistic statement, and face no repercussions.
This incident, while the most prominent, and garnering national attention, was only a small segment of the larger problem evident at this year’s Olympics. Consistently, sports and sexism have seemed to be intertwined, everywhere from the elementary to professional level, with less of a turn out at college games for women, a harder push to dissuade young girls from joining sports, and a constant scrutiny for female athletes.
The Olympics this year have really exemplified this. Recently, a video had gone viral of 18-year old Olympic figure skater Isabeau Levito, where she was excitedly talking about how she was enjoying her time in the Olympic village. The comments, however, were full of obscene statements about her body, and the sexual things that they believed she must be doing in the village. Assumptions such as these are so common to be made around female athletes, and practically nonexistent for their male counterparts.
And this sexism is not apparent just in individual moments. It’s built into the Olympic games. The Winter games are full of a wide variety of sports, and a lesser known one is called the Nordic combined, which combines both ski jumping and cross country skiing. However, at this moment, the Nordic combined competition is the only Winter Olympic sport that still only allows men to compete, for reasons that can only be described as institutional sexism.
These moments have all revealed the greater issue of sexism and misogyny that we continue to ignore. If comments like that continue to be accepted, we are never going to be able to create a safe and comfortable environment for women, in the athletic field or otherwise.
Lila Zink is a freshman ancient studies and anthropology double major and an opinions writer for The Retriever.
Contact Lila at z83@umbc.edu.