Media Under Fire for Asking Bouchard Inappropriate Questions

January 23, 2014 • Blog, Culture, Sports

Eugenie Bouchard, the 19-year-old Canadian tennis player who recently beat out Ana Ivanovic to reach the semi-finals in the Australian Open (a Canadian first) has been receiving a lot of attention as of late from the media.

However, the attention isn’t quite what an athlete of Bouchard’s calibre should be given. In fact, a question asked by Channel 7′s Samantha Smith is drawing accusations of being sexist. In the wake of Bouchard’s career-defining victory the question posed was, “You’re getting a lot fans here. A lot of them are male. And they want to know, if you could date anyone in the world of sport, of movies — I’m sorry, they asked me to say this — who would you date?”

Eugenie’s rank has been on a steady rise and is currently no. 32 after beginning last year at no. 144. She is also the first Canadian since Carling Bassett in 1984 to reach a major semi-final.

So the question remains, is it appropriate to ask questions of this nature to female athletes when their male counterparts would receive different treatment? The answer is up for debate, but one thing’s for sure, all fluff aside nothing can detract from Bouchard’s unmistakable talent.

For those of you interested though, her answer was “Justin Bieber.”

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=sports.nationalpost.com/2014/01/21/australian-open-2014-eugenie-bouchard-wins-biggest-match-of-her-career-gets-asked-about-dating-in-courtside-interview&pubdate=2014-01-21

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