Investigators say 99.7% of the videos they analysed featured only men
The world athletics governing body has found female athletes targeted by online abuse during the Olympic preparations in Tokyo at almost 87% of all the files analysed in a crackdown on sexism.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said in a report seen by the Guardian that 99.7% of the 50,252 videos analysed featured only men. The authors said that the run-up to the Games showed that “sexism takes places at a critical moment when female athletes put themselves forward for a Games where they strive to better the lives of those around them”.
The FIA’s investigation was revealed after the London Irish head coach, Exeter’s Rob Baxter, revealed last week that the IAAF had introduced anti-abuse measures to protect women athletes’ privacy after intelligence suggested the anti-doping equivalent of revenge porn was being used to target female competitors.
The investigation focused on the months of June and July in advance of the Tokyo games, which start on 9 August.
In June, the world 100m champion Christian Coleman accused the world record holder Usain Bolt of cheating by claiming Bolt’s “motor was not running very fast at all” after the Jamaican won the 100m in 9.95 seconds in Ostrava in June. Two days after that, former US sprinter Gail Devers accused the Jamaican Asafa Powell of mimicking the St Lucian Allan Gayle, who won bronze in the 100m in the 2004 Olympics.
Allan Gayle and Asafa Powell compete in the 100m at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
To test the level of misogyny, critics were invited to upload videos of themselves without identifying themselves, but after analysing some 109,183 files, investigators found that when women were featured, only 5.8% featured more than 20%. There were 716 flagged videos that expressed the views of only men in total.
Some 3.4% of all the submissions were women that were featured in more than one section. Critics were invited to upload films titled “Teens Out of Control”, “Taking the High Road to Shame” and “This Is What He Did” and those with the latter two, which were shared in 190 instances, were considered the most “negative”. The most common theme, though, was “making jokes”.
They used targeted phrases such as “Female backache”, “Stroke at least 10 times”, “Pain Management Specialist”, “Poor Appearance”, “Striking Older Man/Woman”, “No one knows you”, “No type of food tastes good”, “Fashion Victim”, “Speaking Russian”, “It was the middle of summer last year”, “Jewelry is for men only”, “Wheels fell off”, “Black Supporter”, “Candy”, “Stripper”, “B*tch”, “Mum*”, “Bridesmaid”, “Stockitites”, “Temptation”, “B*tchBack”, “Slut”, “Suit & Tie”, “Stalker”, “Black F*cker”, “B*tch Back”, “Whore”, “Sex Worker”, “Crappy Twerking”, “Disgusting Sluts”, “Thirsty”, “Manipulate a Woman”, “Money Mummy”, “Loose Women”, “Sh*t Jack Wills”, “Disgusting Ass”, “Sex Position”, “Slut Warriors”, “Rednecks”, “B*tch Boy”, “Slut Club”, “Slut Dishonour”, “Sex on the Beach”, “Gold Tapper”, “Disgusting Babes”, “Sluts at Parties”, “Look at you on your knees”, “Dilemma”, “Get out of my country”, “Numbness”, “Blind Date”, “Sexist Slut”, “Giving my organs away”, “Slut in a Garden�