Annemiek van Vleuten, a Dutch cyclist, was part of the gold-winning team in a nailbiting women's road event. Sadly she crashed, flipped over her handlebars and ended up in hospital with multiple lumbar fractures.
Ms van Vlueten confirmed that she was alive and well on twitter - a huge relief to her team and fans - and expressed her disappointment.
Just imagine - four years training for an event and then a serious injury. Anyone can appreciate the emotional rollercoaster that would be, and the importance of support and sensitivity.
Or so you would think.
If there's a gold medal for mansplaining, this would be a sure thing. Martin Betancourt, who appears to be unknown for his cycling skills and lists himself as a renewable technologies and carbon reduction entrepreneur, decided to give beginner's advice to a flippin' OLYMPIAN.
Now we've all said something dumb from time to time but a key part of being a grown-up, staying woke and not having the world think you are a dick is recognising you've mistepped and tapped into long-held and strongly reinforced cultural assumptions about the percieved disparity in authority between men and women. You know, acknowledge, apologise, read an op-ed, and then go about about your day. The best part about this approach is that at the end, you know something you didn't know before - how great is that?
Annemiek van Vleuten kicking ass, taking names. Source: Velofocus
Or, instead you can keep digging, insist that you love the womens...
... that anyone who took issue with you only did it for attention...
... and - this is the best one - start dragging New Zealand.
Pal, have to been to New Zealand? It's awesome - it's pretty as all hell, the wine is amazing, Billy Crystal and Ruth Bader-Ginsberg want to move there, and Russell Crowe left. Coincidentally, it's also a world leader in your industry, renewables!
At this point, it seems prudent to say that Twitter pile-ons serve no purpose. The issue has been brought to his attention. But was does serve a mention is highlighting the myriad of ways, big and small, that we perpetuate inequality. 'Helpful' tweets might not seem related to the pay gap, or the lack of medical research into reproductive health, or representation in parliament or the lack of consequences for perpetrators of sexual assault.
But they rest on the same premise - that men know more than women; that in any interaction knowledge flows from man to woman, and not the other way around; that women need help and protection rather than support.
And that sucks. Worse than New Zealand.
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