On the ‘Is Strictly voting a little bit "ageist"’ thread somebody pointed out that there had only been one male celeb so far in 4 dances-off (or dance-offs):

Melvin vs Anastacia
Tameka vs Laura
Naga vs Anastacia
Lesley vs Daisy

So – here’s the question – Is Strictly voting a little bit Sexist…..?

Personally I think probably not, I think it’s a combination of the male celebs being either really good (Ore/Danny), having a strong fanbase (Greg) or being so good they’re bad and getting votes that way (Judge Rinder/Ed)?

The female celebs on the other hand are more middle-ground and therefore falling into the trap.

Anyone else?

Tameka was probably the best dancer (?) in the characterful trier bracket that includes survivors Rinder, Ed and Greg, so there's probably an -ist of some kind at play in the voting. Or maybe an unfortunate combo of several vague and unconscious -ists all at once.

As things have played out (injuries and unexpected departures), Tameka has been an even bigger loss to the character and interest of these weeks

Nope it just depends who the public like/ can warm too coupled with the dancing

Sexist against women (from the celebs viewpoint) or sexist against men (from the pros viewpoint)?

Only one way to find out....FIGHT!!!

... probably!

It must definitely be an '...ist' as there are so many threads on the '...ist' theory so it must be right.

But as we are unaware that we are '...ists' lets party

Hard to tell - I think attractive men tend to do better than women but then again only if they are not perceived to be arrogant. I think some of it is down to personality. A lot of people like Greg because he's obviously a nice guy and he is doing his best and mostly I think in spite of having to re-train muscle memory doing pretty well. His routines apart from last week's efforts are at least engaging. Some female contestants who are good just aren't likeable Denise Van Outen springs immediately to mind but quite a lot of James Jordan's partners seemed to suffer from this. There also partnership aspects a lot of men who seem to do better than most of the armchair expects think they should have great rapport with their partners - Darren Gough, Chris Hollins and this year Greg all seem to have it in spades. Women who achieve the same rapport - Alesha and Kara spring to mind and to a lesser extent Susannah also seem to do well. The same that Anton seems good at establishing a rapport with his partners is also why his partners often do better than their ability levels would justify.

You'd need a breakdown of the gender, ages, occupations, incomes, area lived in, whether they know who the celeb is or not, do they like the professional, e.t.c. before you could even begin to try and analyse why people vote for who they do and who they don't even consider voting for. Even then I doubt you'd get a definitive answer

For instance in the early stages before it's establish who can actually dance who can't:

I might not vote for Daisy, Tameka, Melvin, Danny or Laura because I'd never heard of them, or I might vote for them if I thought they showed promise.

I might not vote for Greg or Claudia because I had a prejudice against sports people, or I might vote for them because some sports people have done extremely well and they will have stamina on their side.

I might not vote for Leslie or Ed because older contestants tend not to do well.or I might vote for them because it's great to see middle-aged/older people having a go.

I could vote for those who I think have a chance of winning, or I might want to give the underdogs a chance.

I might not vote for any celeb who has Anton for a partner if I don't like Anton.

We all vote for who we do different reasons.

That was me by the way. Who pointed out the voting is sexist.

It's one of those things I think it's just as likely as the voting being racist, ageist or even anti Semitic

Not just the voting, you've only got to read some of the threads on here to get the same vibe.

It was indeed Hamlet77 - but I pinched your comment and ran with it

Hope you don't mind too much

You keep running with it, im too busy getting flack from elsewhere on DS.

People vote for different reasons. Some may vote for the best dancer, or if they think someone is "hot", entertaining etc. I don't vote, but if I did, it would be for who i considered was the best dancer that week, male or female, it would not matter.

Given that the first four celebrities out last year were men and the final six had a 5/1 gender split in favour of women, I'd say no. Or perhaps yes, but in both directions depending on who's good/who they want to do well.

Yes, but last year we all knew Jay was going to win right from the off, so there was no reason to vote for anyone else

But good point actually.

Maybe we're not 'ist' at all - we just vote for our favourite couples and that's just the way the cookie crumbles - no racists/ageists/sexists among us.....

I wouldn't say it's sexist but I definitely think there is a double standard in women and men. The most obvious being the treatment of young attractive celebs. For example look at Danny he is arguably the most trained celeb to come to the show yet everyone drools over him saying he's a natural dancer. Meanwhile Pixie a young beautiful woman was criticised constantly for having dance experience which isn't a patch on what say Jay or Danny had. I do feel woman are criticised more than men and more scrutinised but maybe it's because everyone just presumes all good female dancers on the show have had dance training

You're wrong about Danny and even Ore (there have been threads throwing mud at them both quite liberally) starting to catch the suspicions of the 'dirty rangar' tag and they are getting much more flack than Louise who probably has comparable levels to Danny but is more beyond the radar. I think what you're getting is actually tall poppy syndrome with in Denise's case a lack of honesty to boot.

I think Jay got away with it because Peter Andre took a lot of attention away from him and he got the flack instead as Jay seemed to get critised for not performing which took some heat off him.

There is sexism when it comes to ringers. The hatred on this forum for female ringers has been despicable, and they can never win regardless of how well they dance, because the public make up excuses about their personality to not vote for them. But people like Jay, Danny and Ore are fine, because they are good looking men.

Great female dancers have an uphill struggle on this, no doubt about it. Especially if they have a more "aggressive" personality rather than being bubbly and inoffensive.

You've answered your own question

Sadly I was a self confessed Tamekaist

If we take the context of the double standards out of what is discussed on the forum you can see that all the comments of Danny's dance on Facebook are full of support and saying how amazing he is, meanwhile when Pixie was on everyone was like can't get over how much dance training she has had, so unfair blah blah. And believe me Louise has not had nearly as much dance training as Danny. I'm a student at one of Londons top performing arts schools and I'm studying exactly what Danny did and he did a hell of a lot of dance training and that's a fact. Louise went Itali Conti which is a performing arts school but she didn't go there full time for 3 years like Danny did

You can get ointment for that these days!

There's an easy way out to this. Ban men celebrities. Or ban women celebrities. Frankly, I'm not too sure. Somebody help with this affirmative action plan.

Interesting, thank you. It does seem like there is a little bit of 'evening the score' on here with people pointing out how much training Louise has had.

Personally, I don't think I am in anyway sexist because in almost all of the series so far a female celeb has had my vote.

No I don't think the voting is sexist in any way, ringers or otherwise!!
Of course there will always be an element of fans voting for a celeb who's easy on the eye whether male or female & at a guess there will probably be more females than males voting which would account for the younger men doing well against the younger women but, Jay last year aside, in the last few series' women have generally dominated simply because the female celebs have been better dancers!!
Regarding 'ringers' I think those people who it really bothers will have the same go at celebs of either sex tbh, a lot more depends on the personality!! Natalie in 2013 is a prime example, brilliant dancer, best of the series by a mile, some training (which to be fair she was honest about) but the public just didn't take to her personality enough to give her the win she deserved!! Jay last year on the other hand, also a good dancer with some training, yet the public did take to his personality & he won by a distance!!
Pixie is not a great example as she went out simply because she had a bad week at a crucial time in the competition & votes went elsewhere!!
As for Danny this year I have seen many a complaint from people who aren't his fans about him being trained already in fact there was a whole thread about it, whereas with Louise the main complaints seem to be about hrr lack of personality, don't remember her training even being mentioned!!