This year’s Olympics have been the first year ever in the history of the games where the British women athletes won a large amount of the medals, including twelve of the twenty-nine gold medals. British women athletes are the best they’ve ever been with the likes of Jessica Ennis and Laura Trott gracing the top of the podium. These are inspiring, hard-working British women who have shrived to be the best. And they got there. They are the best at their sport in the entire world.
So it worried me slightly, sitting down to watch the closing ceremony on Sunday night, that, although women athletes are living their finest hour, there was still the need to have Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell in it.
I love fashion and I admire these women for the role they have within the British fashion movement; they walk from one end to the other in a pretty outfit. Maybe the occasional pout. But that is all they do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure modelling is incredibly tiresome and competitive and the women who walked the catwalk at the closing ceremony are the best of their kind. I just find it scary that these women, in many people’s eyes, are seen as bigger idols than that of the healthy, dedicated athletes.
Take Kate Moss, for example. Famous for being Pete Doherty’s ex-girlfriend, caught sniffing cocaine, and publically lighting a cigarette on a catwalk the week the smoking ban was put in to place.
Similarly, Naomi Campbell is most famous for her fighting and that thing to do with the diamonds (I don’t know the details nor do I wish to!)
Compare these models with the likes of Helen Glover who took up rowing only four years ago, yet through sheer dedication and grafting, she won a gold medal in London 2012. She might not have amazing bone structure or gets her nails done as much as she could, but she was too busy working towards her dream!
I read a whole article a few days ago about the fact that Jessica Ennis only pays £40 on her hair at her local hairdressers. Someone was paid to write an entire article on how ‘down-to-earth’ it was that Ennis still got her hair done where she always has. Who cares! She’s a gold Olympic athlete yet the media still think it’s important to write a story about how she looks.
I think the British media need to sit up and realise that how a woman looks no longer matters. What matter s is the amount she has achieved and the inspiration she has given to future generations.
I really hope that the Olympic fever will mean that little girls at school will look up to our amazing women athletes instead of the desired heroin- chic models and actresses. I hope that they will want to be swimmers and rowers and gymnasts rather than the next Katie Price. I want them to be inspired by our girls’ complete and utter determination to get to where they want to be!
Kat Morgan