off the ball
Shirley Ballas in new sexism row as Strictly judge is accused of underscoring female dancers
The head judge came under fire once again following a tense semi-final battle on Saturday night
SHIRLEY Ballas has been accused of underscoring the female dancers in a new sexism row on Strictly.
The head judge has faced criticism over alleged "favouring" of male stars in the past.
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Now furious viewers have accused her of giving the men higher scores for dances that weren't as technically impressive as the women.
During the semi-finals, Pete Wicks received two nines from Shirley - the same as Sarah Hadland.
In fact, Shirley gave Chris McCausland and Pete the highest scores out of the judges for both of their dances.
She also helped send JLS star JB Gill straight through to the final with two 10s.
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However, some of her markings didn't go down well with viewers.
One fan ranted after this weekend's episodes: "Shirley is my least favourite judge. I get the feeling she panders to the men and criticises the women more than any judge before her.
"I do think she is unprofessional and I so wish they would remove her."
Someone else added: "When Shirley gives constructive criticism, it’s good and usually something the contestant needs to hear in order to improve. The problem is WHEN she chooses to give it, and her obvious different standard for male contestants vs female.
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"I’ve noticed when a male contestant (Pete) makes a mistake, it’s okay because he carried on, but when a female contestant goes wrong, and carries on, it’s not their best and they should do better."
Another viewer pointed out: "It also doesn’t help that when Shirley does constructive comments, with the ladies at least she comes across as super condescending."
Strictly's Shirley Ballas reveals the real reason Pete Wicks has got so far in the competition
She was hit with claims of sexism earlier this series when she sent Sam Quek home after a dance-off with Montell Douglas - saying her low scores for female celebs put "the wrong stars in the bottom two".
One Strictly viewer complained: "So frustrating when the judges can't mark properly as we then have the wrong people in the dance off and the wrong couple going home.
Shirley then re-posted the message to her page and wrote: "The show has been on over twenty years the public vote makes a difference.
"You the public can vote to save your favourites.
"It gets childish to blame the judges."
All your Strictly Come Dancing winners
Strictly first kicked off back in 2004, and over the years has crowned 21 winners.
Here is a full list of who has been lucky enough to win the famous Glitterball Trophy:
- 2004 - Natasha Kaplinsky
- 2004 - Jill Halfpenny
- 2005 - Darren Gough
- 2006 - Mark Ramprakash
- 2007 - Alesha Dixon
- 2008 - Tom Chambers
- 2009 - Chris Hollins
- 2010 -
- 2011 - Harry Judd
- 2012 - Louis Smith
- 2013 - Abbey Clancy
- 2014 - Caroline Flack
- 2015 - Jay McGuiness
- 2016 - Ore Oduba
- 2017 - Joe McFadden
- 2018 - Stacey Dooley
- 2019 - Kelvin Fletcher
- 2020 - Bill Bailey
- 2021 - Rose Ayling-Ellis
- 2022 - Hamza Yassin
- 2023 - Ellie Leach
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