Premier League team apologizes for sending U.S. fans sexist survey question
Let’s just say a survey sent by Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to U.S. fans didn’t go as planned.
According to a number of American complainants, the Premier League club’s questionnaire asked Spurs fans whether they think “a woman’s place is in the home,” with the following options: “definitely agree,” “tend to agree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” “tend to disagree” or “definitely disagree.”
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Hey, @SpursOfficial, a few of the questions in this survey you just sent out are…unforgivable. #coys pic.twitter.com/VcewE7mJT9
— Jeff Maysh (@jeffmaysh) March 13, 2018
A number of recipients complained on social media:
@SpursOfficial I am a huge fan of the spurs but as a woman, I am deeply offended by your USA supporters survey. A woman’s place is no different than a men’s place. #womensrightsarehumanrights #shameonyou
— Emily (@EmJoy811) March 13, 2018
@SpursOfficial that survey question is just plain wrong. A woman’s place is the same place as any citizen.
— Jason (@JasonJwill98) March 13, 2018
Upon learning of the gaffe, Tottenham quickly issued an apology, via a club spokesman:
“The survey questions were compiled by a third party on behalf of the club. The inclusion of this question in a club survey was wholly unacceptable and a regrettable oversight. It has been immediately removed from the survey for any other fans now looking to fill this out. We sincerely apologise to anyone offended by its initial inclusion.”
The third party in charge of issuing the survey, according to Britain’s Press Association, is Kantar Media, a global communications firm that counts Amazon, Twitter and Facebook among its clients.
“By entertaining the premise of these lazy sexist stereotypes, this survey has damaged the status of women in a sport which already has a huge problem with gender inequality,” a spokesperson for the United Kingdom’s Women’s Equality Party said in a statement to The Sun. “Tottenham are right to apologise for the offensive question. It is particularly frustrating that this has undermined the efforts of Tottenham’s board — which has an even split between men and women — to promote women in football and to stamp out sexism and other forms of prejudice.”
Let’s just hope the answers to Tottenham’s question came back 100 percent “definitely disagree.”
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Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
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