【Kali Hansa】
When Norwegian footballer Ada Hegerberg became the first woman to win the Ballon D'Or,Kali Hansa she likely wasn't expecting to get asked about her dancing prowess.
Not only are we still living in an age where women are having "firsts," we're also still living in an era where men think it's cool to ask women if they know how to twerk just as they're accepting a historic award.
SEE ALSO: 9 books to read if you're mad as hell at the patriarchyAfter Hegerberg delivered a speech with an empowering message to young girls, French DJ Martin Solveig decided it'd be a great idea to ask her — after she'd literally just been named the best female footballer in the world — "est-ce que tu sais twerker?",which means: "Do you know how to twerk?"
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Hegerberg — who plays for Olympique Lyonnais — responded with an understandably curt "non." Meanwhile, the incident prompted an explosion of criticism of Solveig's sexist behaviour.
And, true to form, it didn't take long before the memes came pouring in. Hugh Grant kicked things off with a photo of Marie Curie — aka the first woman to win a Nobel Prize — along side the caption "but can you twerk?"
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The memes didn't stop with Marie Curie, though. People turned to other female trailblazers to ask the question they never thought they'd be asked: "But can you twerk?"
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Tbh, this one feels like something Trump might actually say.
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Andy Murray didn't get in on the meme action, but instead asked a question that's crossed many of our minds during this entire bonkers incident: "Why do women still have to put up with that shit?"
Why indeed?
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Solveig later issued a pretty poor apology, stating: "Well, guys I'm a little bit amazed by what I'm reading on the internet.
"I, of course, didn't want to offend anyone," he added."This comes from a distortion of my English culture level, which is obviously not enough because I didn't mean to offend anyone. I didn't know this could be seen as such an offence, especially when you consider the sequence in total when we ended up dancing on Frank Sinatra.
"This was a joke, probably a bad one, and I want to apologise for the one I may have offended. Sorry about that."
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After the twerk incident, Hegerberg appeared to exit the stage but then was reported to be seen "reluctantly agreeing to dance" with the awards host David Ginola. Can't a woman just win an award in peace?
Afterwards Hegerberg said it felt "incredible" to be the first female winner of the Ballon D'Or.
"This is a great motivation to continue working hard and we will continue to work together to win more titles. I wanted to end with some words for young girls around the world: believe in yourselves," she said.
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Let's hope Hegerberg's important message isn't overshadowed by this incident.
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