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Further implications
There is truth on both sides of this issue - those who see Gayle's breach of appropriate standards of conduct as minor and those who are outraged by it have a case to make.
In reality, the issue is probably not that of Gayle's conduct on this particular occasion per se. Some of those who note that he did no more than compliment the journalist on her eyes and tentatively ask her out wonder what the fuss is about. The whole exchange lasted for only one minute, within which time Gayle was comprehensively rebuffed by McLaughlin's reaction to his invitation.
However, what makes the exchange significant in the eyes of many people is the broader context within which it occurred. Numerous commentators have used this incident as an opportunity to draw attention to the sexism and misogyny which they claim still mar Australia's sporting culture.
It has been noted that women have to struggle to achieve any sort of genuine credibility when they seek to play a professional part in Australia's sporting scene. Attention has been drawn to the secondary status given most women's sport - the reduced financial rewards, the limited media coverage and the relative lack of sponsorship. Attention has also been focused on the lack of respect often shown to those women who seek to work on an equal footing within male-dominated sporting codes.
Women reporters, commentators and administrators have complained of being made to feel like outsiders and of being subjected to sexual abuse and innuendo and sometimes the force of outright aggression and intimidation.
Such observations paint the Australian sporting culture as one which has not yet adapted to women operating within it on equal terms. Despite public relations campaigns intended to attract and retain women as spectators at many sporting competitions, their fuller participation is still not always welcome and accepted. Those men playing, administrating and reporting on many sports still seem to see their codes as boy's own enclaves where women have no function other than as camp followers.
Critics have noted that women seem to be afforded a place primarily to the extent that they can act as 'eye-candy'. The focus on the physical appearance of the WAGS in both AFL and Australian cricket can be seen as a case in point, as can the apparently ubiquitous requirement that any female sports reporter be young and conspicuously attractive.
It is in this context that Chris Gayle's flirtatious invitation to Mel McLaughlin has caused such consternation among many commentators, especially female commentators. It serves as a reminder that within many areas of the sporting industry women are still not treated as equals. They are objectified and belittled and are there on sufferance - either to decorate a screen or to help win a female audience.
Good humoured banter is only possible among equals. For male commentators a joke from a colleague or interview subject may just be a joke. For female commentators it is more likely to function as a reminder of their secondary, subservient status.
In all this Gayle may simply have been unlucky to have touched a raw nerve. That said, his remarks remain ill-judged.
Whatever one's view of Gayle's behaviour and its significance there should be no place for racial stereotyping in the popular or media response to his conduct. Gayle should be judged as an individual and neither condemned nor excused on the basis of his cultural and ethnic background.