Idiots At The Cricket Are Chanting “Stand By Gayle”; Repelling Every Woman In A 500-Kilometre Radius
Someone call their mums to come get them.
People reacted to the Chris Gayle sexism controversy earlier this week in very different ways. It spawned some passionate, scathing condemnation from female sporting journalists, many of whom took the opportunity to reveal their own experiences of being harassed by Gayle and the rampant sexism in the sporting industry more generally. It inspired some brilliant satire from the likes of SBS Comedy, while others, like Daily Life’s Ruby Hamad, noted that 2016 seemed to be off to a flying start in the 1950s-era sexism stakes.
Then there were the people who thought the whole thing was a beat-up, a joke taken the wrong way, an example of political correctness gone mad, or evidence that Australia’s gone soft. Many pulled up instances of women eyeing off or flirting with men on TV, and the lack of outrage at those interactions, as “proof” that the Gayle controversy is hypocritical; that humourless feminists are getting het up over a harmless flirtation, and that people need to lighten up. If you’ve seen any comments section on the internet in the last few days, you’re pretty familiar
All of which ignores testimony from a growing number of journalists that Gayle has a track record of saying disgusting and wildly unprofessional things to female reporters, seemingly to humiliate them in front of TV cameras or his teammates. Or the fairly obvious point that men are far less likely to be professionally undercut by people they work with if they’re hit on in the workplace, while women — especially those in a male-dominated industry like sports reporting — must constantly negotiate the sexual and power-based desires of their male counterparts, running a gauntlet of harassment, intimidation, the threat of being professionally disregarded or fired altogether, or being punished if they speak out.
Despite being fined $10,000 and facing the prospect of being dropped from the Big Bash League altogether, Gayle himself seems pretty nonchalant about the backlash to his behaviour, if the half-assed ‘apology’ he made to Mel McLaughlin and his Instagram are anything to go by.
Led by angry and slightly confused men nationwide, the backlash-to-the-backlash has crystallised in the #StandByGayle hashtag, which I heartily recommend checking out if you need to be in a terrible mood sometime this afternoon.
The “movement” even managed to get some boots on the ground at the MCG last night, where the Melbourne Stars took on the Hobart Hurricanes. Photos and footage of mostly-male punters waving signs reading ‘Stand By Gayle’, as well as the odd highly imaginative chant, have begun circling online. Reports first suggested that fans were being kicked out of the ground for displaying the signs, but the MCG later clarified that the signs were only confiscated, with patrons allowed to stay.
Last night, we were those fans ?? #standbygayle @henrygayle @pevstar1234 pic.twitter.com/xOmLgFnkq7
— Jake McMahon (@jayyk33_) January 7, 2016
And here’s the crowd chanting their support for #standbygayle pic.twitter.com/knD1JnuShh
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) January 7, 2016
I would truly love to see the Venn-diagram overlap of ‘people getting into #StandByGayle’ and ‘people who think booing Adam Goodes wasn’t racist’. Someone, please, call these guy’s mums to come get them before they hurt themselves.