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To date, the Rio Olympics for Canada has been a Game of Thrones recap, in which the women emerge as the most capable and fearsome warriors. The men blunder, the women plunder. The Olympic pool has been Canada’s Narrow Sea, with Penny Oleksiak standing in as our Daenerys Targaryen, who, as we know, medalled multiple times in the sport of Killing People. So, yay women.

On the other hand:

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While the world has moved on to more rarified plumbing issues like washroom access for the transgendered, the Summer Olympics still finds itself grappling with old male-female divides and feminist issues that I thought had been dealt with decades ago. For example:

When Egypt’s women’s beach volleyball team played Germany on Monday, the image of Egypt’s Doaa Elghobashy playing in a hijab went viral. Elghobashy — who was allowed to play in a hijab only because of a last-minute concession by the frat boys at the International Volleyball Federation, which until 2012 mandated that women wear swimsuits suitable for the Victoria’s Secret catalogue — played covered up, while her partner, Nada Meawad, chose to play bare-headed. The Germans played in butt-cheek-baring bikinis. (Which caused my daughter-in-law to wonder, “Why would you play in something where you would end up with sand in your hoo-hoo?”)