The story of sacked Sky Sports presenter Andy Gray is about the lack of old-fashioned manners ? and there are many men and women who share his attitudes
What on earth came over Andy Gray in recent months? For more than two decades, he was a highly valued employee of Sky Sports, his golden commentary so well suited to its all-important football coverage that he ended up earning �1.7m a year for it. Then suddenly, in the run-up to Christmas, he turned into an ignorant vulgarian, rude and contemptuous of his own Sky colleagues, and woefully misinformed about the technical capabilities of people holding wider responsibilities in the sport he had been considered, until recently, an expert ambassador for (specifically, the teaching and the learning of the offside rule). Since December, the problem has only escalated. Or so it would seem.
Gray is said to have been felled because his behaviour was offensive about and towards women. And sure, one could argue that Gray's contempt for other professionals blossomed only when those other professionals were female. But that wouldn't be quite true. He and his partner in "banter", Richard Keys, distrusted the word of a cameraman who assured them that assistant referee Sian Massey was "all right", and discomforted former footballer Jamie Redknapp by crudely quizzing him about his sex-life with "Louise". The enthusiastically cultivated casual misogyny of this pair was not just offensive to women. It was simply offensive.
They now admit that their behaviour and attitudes were wrong, although Keys speaks of "dark forces" swirling around this issue. He is referring, I think, to the united front being displayed by all of Rupert Murdoch's media outlets on this matter. Conspiracy theorists mutter that Gray's big mistake was to involve himself in the celebrity uprising against the News of the World, which has for some time, and with fading success, been fighting off accusations of widespread illegal phone-tapping in the pursuit of stories. Perhaps. But since Murdoch is currently deeply involved in complex negotiations to take over yet further chunks of British broadcasting as well, he might not be tremendously keen to draw attention to the vast swathes of the British media that are already under his ownership. If it's a deliberate strategy, it's a bit of a disaster.
Obviously, however, it warms the heart to see the Sun standing so firmly against the denigration of women. Except that many people, me included, consider the bit of fun that is the Page 3 girl to be unsuitable in a family newspaper. Keys admits he and Gray are too fond of "lads' mag humour". Likewise, it could be argued that women having breasts is neither news nor family entertainment, and that the latest updates on nipples should be limited to the wide range of specialist publications uncovering them.
Yet, sadly, excellent opportunity for righteous indignation as this episode is, it is still not quite clear cut enough to be considered ideal. Charlotte Jackson is the Sky Sports presenter whom Gray got the actual bullet for treating disrespectfully. Jackson ignored Gray when he invited her to put her hand down his trousers. Others have been appalled on her behalf. But Jackson may not have felt she was in a strong position to challenge Gray, as she has appeared in her scanties in "lads' mags" herself.
This does not excuse Gray's base treatment of Jackson at all. But it is a useful reminder that men do not develop their ideas about women and sexual objectification in a vacuum. Jackson did glamour modelling because it was good for her career as a sports presenter. Lots of other young women do the same because the pay is good. Whatever. The fact remains that it is real women who provide the bodies that photographers turn into fantasy women. Not all men (or women), tragically, understand that real women and fantasy women are two different things, even if the latter is a photograph of the former.
Pleased as I am that a firm line is being taken against this pair and their gender-obsessed lack of respect and professionalism, I can't help feeling for them, just a little. Gray hails from the same part of the world as I do, and is seven years older than me. When he and I were children, it was accepted as an everyday fact of life that women were less intelligent than men, and that a decent woman slept with only one man in her life ? her husband. At four, I remember wishing fervently that it would turn out that little girls became men and little boys women, since it was so obviously better to be a man. This wasn't something I picked up from my parents. It was everywhere.
Of course, it is awesome, wonderful, that this appalling and damaging canard has been seen off so thoroughly in half a century. But Gray, son of a woman from a highly conservative island community, growing up in Glasgow at the peak of its powerful cult of macho heavy industry, has sheltered in the artificial world of footballing success and wealth all his adult life, bolstered by a long line of women who seemed happy to accept his attitudes. Sure, he could have taken the initiative and educated himself in the ways of a changing world. But, until this week, he played by the rules of the world he knew and found the rewards for doing so were immense.
It took 20 years and a massive media furore to unseat Gray, and he's probably still confused about exactly what happened to him. Possibly, he will remain confused, even very bitter, for the rest of his life. Women have made great progress since Gray turned up on the scene, and men have, in the main, been glad to accept the self-evident justice of feminist assertions. But minority opinion has polarised, and in a troubling, violent fashion. Hatred, distrust and lack of understanding of the opposite sex has hardened into something terrible in a small proportion of men, and also women. The Gray and Keys saga is an important story precisely because it is about good professional and social manners, those being the cultural signifiers that formalise deeper respect. The old saying is that "manners maketh the man". They maketh matters a bit more comfortable and structured for women and for men.
? This article was amended at 21:15 on 26 January 2011. The original version incorrectly stated that the woman called "Louise" whom Keys quizzed Jamie Redknapp about was his wife. This has now been corrected
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/26/deborah-orr-andy-gray-sky-sports-sexism
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