It may well have contributed to her getting the exposure that first got her known. But I doubt the only reason people like her is for having no bra.

I can't see any other reasons, to be honest.

Malcolm, have you turned into AA Gill?

Wearing a bra does not stop men / the media from focalising on a famous woman's tits. So if Dimmock didn't want to put one on, why should she? What does she have to lose? Her job involves staying in the public eye, and that's one fairly harmless way to do it. I think it's a bit of a shame she's known for that, but Dimmock doesn't have the power by herself to fight sexism and objectification in the media. If truth be told, presenting a tv programme doesn't require much skill, and there are thousands of skilful enough, attractive enough women who'd be happy to take over from her. Which is basically what happened, isn't it?

Why are we talking about Charlie Dimmock anyway?

I have to say I think Malcolms reasoning is flawless. Ask anyone in the street what Charlie Dimmock is most famous for and it'll be "she was on the TV and didn't wear a bra". If she'd worn a bra would we remember her now?

The premise being this is the same reason beach volleyball players wear little clothes. After all, who would honestly watch the womens beach volleyball if they weren't?

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My point.

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&gs_nf=1& ... 66&bih=541
I rest my case.

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

Charlie Dimmock is undoubtedly celebrated, first and foremost, for her peanut smuggling activities on the TeeVee. And only secondarily for her landscaping skills and cheeky sense of humour (wtf?). Whether she eschewed bosom underpinnings for comfort reasons or as part of a conscious attempt to grab attention is almost immaterial, for whatever the motivation, her free swinging funbags have reaulted in the latter.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

My point is that access to publicity is not equal. I'm sure the Olympic shooting team and the shotputters would like to be in the papers, too, but the Mail hasn't commissioned an article about them. The Mail's narrative for publicising young, successful, active women is the same tits-and-bums objectification that it uses for actors, singers and Kardashians. That narrative plays a part in preventing girls from participating in sport. Charlie Dimmock never stopped anyone from tending their garden.


I don't think Charlie Dimmock is relevant to this question. Is anyone suggesting that female Olympic athletes wear the outfits they do just in order to get publicity for themselves? Do they even have a choice? Either way, there's a double standard.

So it's not, as was pointed out in an official survey only this week, an issue of teachers creating an apartheid of ability whereby only kids who are any good are given any time coupled with the fact that the female versions of the most high profile sports are given pitiful amounts of airtime not because of some image problem but because the quality in those sports is actually quite poor compared to the male version?

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Exactly. I don't understand why the women have to wear much less than the men. With some events it's pretty much equal (e.g. cycling) but out of necessity.

I'd have thought looser fitting bottoms (or longer ones, e.g. knee-length shorts) would be much more comfortable for the athletes. Sports bras I totally understand, but that's not to say women can't wear vests over them.

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Changin' avatars like there's no tomorrow

Giggity!

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"The first casualty on your Facebook wall is always facts..."

#rightwingpoliticalcorrectness - for when some "Tell it like it is" bullshitter plays the political correctness card, often without irony!

It's those things, too. They're in the report I linked to in the OP, and they're arguably the most important obstacles, not least because they should be easier to overcome. That doesn't mean the issue of objectification is irrelevant — indeed, it was highlighted in the same report, and it's the one that's most relevant to Mailwatch.

I don't really agree with you about the link between quality and profile either, or rather I think it's a lot more complicated that you suggest. For instance, for the semi-finals of the women's champion's league last month, more than 15,000 people attended the game in Lyon, while fewer than 500 went to the match hosted by Arsenal. The quality wasn't that different (although Lyon is the reigning European champion), but Lyon and the French Football Federation have put time and money into promoting the women's game, while Arsenal played their match with minimal publicity on a Wednesday afternoon in Borehamwood. There's a huge potential audience for women's sport — mainly made up of women — but the organisers always face the same obstacles: the self-fulfilling cliché that women aren't interested in watching or participating in sports, and women's sport constantly being judged in comparison with men's.

Also, is the fact that the quality isn't so good a factor of the underexposure, making it a big of a vicious circle. If there were more exposure for womens sport then there would be more money in the sport and the quality would improve. For instance in Norway, the womens Handball is a massive sport and possibly more popular than the mens, because it isn't so fast. That may be a factor of the sport itself, the court is quite small and its no fun to watch the men lobbing the ball from one end to the other all the time, so the women have to play more tactically, making it more enjoyable to watch.

I'd have though that it could be the same for tennis, fewer high speed aces and smashes leading to more rallies leading to a more spectator friendly sport, but it isn't.

Sprry for the rather incoherent ramble there.

Didn't Sepp Blatter once suggest that women footballers should wear tighter kits?

But are we really showing any sort of surprise here that sexual attractiveness and popularity have some form of link?

David Beckham is one of the richest, best known and (yuk) loved sportsmen on the planet.

He is a good (not world class as people who love him will have you believe) footballer. His crowning achievement was a free kick against Greece 11 years ago.

If he looked like Iain Dowie, he'd be about as famous as Nick Barmby now.

Or to put it another way, there's a reason why one Ronaldo with Real Madrid on the CV appears in speedos on the cover of Vanity Fair while the other Ronaldo with Real Madrid on his CV would struggle to get the gig pushing Pukka Pies*, even if he wanted it (which he almost certainly would).


*Other purveyors of assorted shite in pastry are available. GInsters, for example.

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"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)