Paris Olympics camera operators told to avoid ‘sexist’ filming of women

New Delhi: Camera operators have been urged to avoid ‘sexist’ filming of women athletes at the Paris Olympics. The CEO of the official broadcaster of the Games have requested to film women in the same way they would do for men.

The message has been delivered with the intention of avoiding “stereotypes and sexism” in TV coverage after Paris Olympics became the first modern Games in its 128-year history to achieve gender parity among athletes.

In order to help raise the profile of women sports, it has been given slots for prime-time broadcast. The head of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) has said its guidelines have been updated for male-majority camera operators.

OBS provide for the TV coverage of the Olympics, with images of it shared with rights holders around the globe.

“Unfortunately, in some events they (women) are still being filmed in a way that you can identify that stereotypes and sexism remains, even from the way in which some camera operators are framing differently men and women athletes,” OBS chief executive Yiannis Exarchos said, as quoted by AFP.

“Women athletes are not there because they are more attractive or sexy or whatever. They are there because they are elite athletes.”

As cameramen generally tend to show greater close-up shots of women than men, as a result of  “unconscious bias”, such a guideline was necessary, Exarchos added.

“The schedules of sporting events have traditionally been biased towards highlighting men’s events,” Exarchos said.

“Traditionally, in team sports, you have first women’s finals, and then the men’s final… In strength and combat sports, traditionally you have women’s competitions in the morning and men’s competitions in the afternoon.”

Hence scheduling changes were undertaken to boost women’s sport with the women’s marathon scheduled to be the final event of the Paris Games instead of the men’s race.

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