Richard Keys and Andy Gray are not the devil. They’re just sad, says TNT’s Frankie Mullin.
Listening to Andy Gray and Richard Keys snigger their way through the series of Beavis And Butthead-esque pronouncements that cost the duo their lucrative jobs as Sky Sports presenters is cringe-inducing. They’re crass and boring and if I met them in my local pub I wouldn’t give them the time of day.
But they’re hardly unique. The country is full of men who talk like this. Is anyone really that sheltered that they are never party to to rude or fatuous comments?
I’m not pretending for a second that sexism isn’t rife in many industries, least of all in football, not known for its progressive sensibilities. But let’s pick our battles.
Women are, actually, quite able to defend themselves from smutty comments made by middle-aged men showing off to their mates. Now please help us get equal pay and explain why it is that men still dominate the top level of most industries.
Richard Keys resigns from Sky Sports
Richard Keys and Andy Gray in sexism row
The hoopla around this trivial talk makes a mockery of real inequality.
Suggesting that women are too fragile to deal with a conversation about whether Jamie Redknapp “smashed it” with his ex does us no favours. The idea that we are somehow more pure than men is to me far more insidiously sexist than the blatant ignorance of Sky’s disgraced presenters.
Personally, I find something unnervingly patronising in the defence of women mounted by News International.
Last Tuesday, The Sun – another News property – ran the headline “Get ‘Em Off”. It referred to Gray and Keys but beside it sat a picture of Massey in a short skirt looking, well, smashable.
So, no thanks News, you’re just not convincing as a sexism-battling knight in shining armour. We know you don’t really give a toss.
Agree? Disagree? Leave your comment below.
