Greek professional tennis player Stefanos Tsitsipas has faced backlash on Twitter after retweeting a message about modern feminism by entrepreneur Iman Gadzi and then later reiterating his sentiment with a tweet of his own.
“Modern feminism teaches women to hate men. Women to hate women that are proud to be women.
“And makes men ashamed to be men.
“It’s a real shame to see something that was initially pure turn to cancerous,” Gadzi tweeted in March.
After retweeting Gadzi yesterday, Tsitsipas later doubled down on the message by adding his own thoughts, writing, “In my opinion everyone is and should be equal to everyone. No matter. Your background, gender, religion, ethnicity, or race.
“Modern feminism has swerved from gender equality into a cult of outrage that seeks to disparage men.
“How is that fair?”
World No. 4 Tsitipas quickly drew a mixture of both support and backlash for his comments - in particular receiving near-universal condemnation from the tennis community, which is home to feminist icons like Billie Jean King an Serena Williams.
“Just wondered what you’re basing this assessment on?” co-host of The Tennis Podcast, journalist Catherine Whitaker asks. “How you’ve educated yourself on the female experience of life/the world? What your understanding of the patriarchy is? Happy to discuss anytime.”
Tsitsipas further explained his stance in another tweet about gender equality earlier today.
"Feminism empowers people, which is one of the key reasons young people should get involved. It's a prevalent misperception that feminism is exclusively beneficial to women, and that only women may be feminists," he wrote.
Feminism actually seeks gender equality, not superiority for women."
"This is my most genuine advice: hire a woman to run your social media," tweeted one far from impressed user. "Like is this really worth it?"
Others shared the perspective of the tennis star, and tweeted their support.
"Did you not get the memo that men are not supposed to have opinions anymore?" one fan tweeted.
"And if you do have an opinion, be prepared to be called an "incel", "misogynist", "mansplainer", and all the other labels for not appeasing every component of what modern feminists are pushing."