Updated, 14:43
TWO FEMALE PRESENTERS from RTÉ Sport have said they have experienced the same kind of sexist remarks that saw Andy Gray sacked from Sky Sports last week.
In yesterday’s Sunday Tribune, GAA reporter Evanne Ní Chuilinn and radio anchor Siobhán Madigan say they have both found the world of sports broadcasting so heavily dominated by men that sexist remarks are unfortunately common.
Ní Chuilinn said that she could identify with the feelings of Sky’s Charlotte Jackson, who was at the receiving end of some of Gray’s lewd remarks in one leaked video.
“If you look carefully at her reaction you can see she is deliberately ignoring what has been said, and I know that feeling and look so well,” the Kilkenny native said.
“I’ve been there myself, where the fellas are being fellas and they are messing around and making little jibes. [Jackson] was well aware and did what I’d do: brush it off and move on.”
Complaining about such behaviour, in her experience, had led to more problems than solutions.
“You just have to laugh it off, because otherwise the focus is shifted to you in a new way when all you are trying to do is your job.”
Madigan added that a female broadcaster in sports would inevitably be seen as “a woman in a man’s world.
“I do a lot of work on boxing… there will always be one or two will have notions of themselves, and will offer their so-called opinion without a thought. And it is like something from the 1950s.”
Note: This story previously attributed the named quotes to the Irish Daily Mirror; thanks to the reader who pointed out that they originated from Jennifer Bray’s piece in the Tribune yesterday.
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