An Indonesian reporter with Viva, a gossip tabloid, was slammed for overly sexualising female athletes in his headlines.

Received warning for sexualising women athletes in headlines

Ridho Permana was handed a warning letter from Committee of Sports Journalists of the Association of Indonesian Journalists on Thursday (Jul. 29) through the news outlet Viva.

According to an Indonesian community news channel, ngopibareng, Ridho was warned for sexually objectifying women athletes in his headlines since 2020.

Some of the headlines he wrote include: "Badminton player posing with bikini makes us sore", "Australian badminton player shows off sexy photo that shows her butt", and "Ruselli Hartawan's sexy selfie in toilet makes us lose our focus".

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His inappropriate headlines were noticed by online users only after he was criticised for writing a distasteful piece of Indonesia's badminton duo in the Tokyo Olympics for failing to win a match.

All his articles have since been taken down from the website at the time of writing.

Social media users were quick to call him out on his behaviour, telling him to take medications to treat his "soreness", a description that Ridho used frequently in his articles.

"Sports appeal, not sex appeal"

The Madrid-based Olympic Broadcasting Services said that Olympic officials are pushing for gender equity on screen.

The head of the broadcasting service, Yiannis Exarchos, said on Monday (July 26), that “you will not see in our coverage some things that we have been seeing in the past, with details and close-up on parts of the body,” AP news reported.

Their mantra for this year's Olympic is "sports appeal, not sex appeal".

Earlier this week, the German gymnastic team wore unitards that reacged their ankles in a pushback against sexualisation of women in sports.

Top images via indonesiafeminis/Instagram