Inequalities In Sports

While participation of women in sports has increased, the media representation of women in sports remains problematic. Even the most talented elite female athletes like Michelle Kwan and Monica Seles are portrayed in a sexual fashion, as a way of deemphasizing their athleticism and neutralizing any possible threat they might seem to pose to male viewers. Very few male athletes are portrayed in such an objectified manner; they are portrayed as competitors first and foremost, not as personalities. Also, the media coverage of athletes is disproportionately focused on male athletes. The coverage of female athletes tends to stress individualized female sports where women can be sexualized like tennis and figure skating, versus competitive team sports like basketball and soccer.

This article talked about the daunting unequal media coverage in sports of male sports teams in comparison to females.They researched the true differentiations of coverage between men and women sports. The actual percentage difference of coverage of male vs female sports discovered in their research truly is unfathomable. Men’s sports receive 96.3% of the airtime, women’s sports 1.6% and gender neutral topics were 2.1%. When you think back about twenty years ago and the coverage of media people tend to think that America is generally trending positively forward, however that is not the case for the coverage of women's athletics. It has actually gone down since then. Although on the scarce occasion that they are feature in the news, more often than not they are conveyed in the stereotypical way: as wives, girlfriends, or mothers. When media is highlighting these aspects instead of their talent, hard work or success it takes away from their image as an athlete and it demonstrating that it is acceptable to do so in society. However if male athlete achieved equal success and he was a father, that

Before I conducted this media analysis about women in sports and sport broadcasting, I hypothesized the obvious - that more male sports would be in the media, and that there would be more male sports broadcasters as well. Through my observations I did find that the sports arena and sports broadcasting sphere are male dominated. However, I also found that although there are not many stories about women, there has been a steady progression and magazines like Sports Illustrated are becoming bold enough to highlight women athletes in a magazine that is targeted towards a male audience. Although women still have a long way to go, they are making some headway into the male-dominated sports arena.

New York Times journalist Karen Crouse described this lack of coverage seen for female sports. Crouse said the modern day female athlete feels “as if she is the sum total of her physical assets—or invisible” (LaVoi, 2013, p. 40).

With the rise of feminism, gender inequality has been quite the topic in todays time. With the wanting of equal rights and treatment it has been pointed out as per which all places males have the hegemonic overview and women are the oppressed; one of the areas where its unequal in gender is in sport. This paper will examine and break down the issues regarding sex and gender biases within sports in modern day media and how it can be resolved.

In the article, it depicts the gender inequality between male and female athletes from the perspectives of authors who write journals, while the author argues the sexism that exits between men and women in sports, and using other authors quotes to support his claim. This source is reliable because the author provided links to the other authors article, which is the same one, and provided examples of women in sports being strong and not tolerating being discriminated against men. The goal of this source is to inform the audience the reasons why female athletes do not receive the same opportunities as men due to the coverage of the media and the portrayal of how women are suppose to act and be. This source helps shape my argument by providing how women’s sports are not given enough coverage in the media, however if the sport supports the strengths that would fit a female athlete it becomes popular. I’ll be using this source to support my argument about how women’s sports are not credited enough in the media and are stereotyped from male

As sports is considered a men’s world, dominant media sports such as men’s football are mainly produced by male journalists for male audiences, representing a particular preferred reading or favourite subject position (Knoppers & Elling, 2004). Peeters, & Elling (2015), argue that, this is both done by presenting male athletes and downgrading female athletes and by sexualising sportswomen. In international competitions such as the Olympics, gender beliefs might be partially “overruled” by nationalism (Wensing & Bruce, 2003). Women’s sports’ lack of coverage and the lack of respectful and serious coverage of women’s sport has been researched for a while and seems to occur in various media platforms such as print and televised news media (Duncan et al, 2005; Adams & Tuggle,

Female athletes that were in the print articles, if any, were often treated as insignificant by the use of smaller articles or smaller pictures and hiding them deep in the print away from the front page. This article showed these inequalities of coverage in sports print media in a number of ways. They used research from big companies like Sports Illustrated all the way down to local newspapers coverage of high school sports. One of the specific things it talked about was the percentage difference of the number of articles in Sports Illustrated about women vs. those about men. This background of past print media differences was a good set up for the discussion of the internet media’s coverage of NCAA women’s basketball compared to NCAA men’s

Hasbrook, of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee designed to study both men’s and women’s basketball, surfing, and marathon running. They studied how the television narratives and visuals of women’s competition versus men’s competition. In their findings, they could reveal people had mixed feelings, and contradictory ideas on the reporting of women’s sports, but was complete opposite from what people saw men’s sports as. “This ambivalence consists of conflicting messages about female athletes.” (Duncan and Hasbrook, pg.1). Proving that people viewed women of sports in a way that trivialized or discredit women’s efforts, and could be seen as a way of saying women should be without power.

Inequalities have been a traditional part of sports. Throughout history one can find many examples of inequality in sports due to race, gender, or disability. This inequality is becoming unacceptable in society and organizations, societies and clubs that are created to exclude individuals are seen as unacceptable. Now more and more organizations are seeking guidance in planning inclusion activities for women, people with disabilities and ethnic minorities. In this paper I will be focusing primarily on the inclusion of disabled people in sports activities.

There has been an abundance literature on the subject of the representation of female athletes in the media, from television coverage and newspapers to magazines and websites. From ancient Greece where it was not allowed for women to partake in or even watch the Olympic Games and the power and independence of the Amazonian tribal warrior woman, to present day and the struggles with underrepresentation and misrepresentation of female athletes in sport media (George, Hartley, Paris, 2001; Creedon, 1994; Bernstein, 2002). The mass media is a sociocultural machine that churns out influential images and articles about (sporting) issues that reflect ideologies, values and beliefs that shape societies attitudes towards that issue, such as the

This study analyzes how female and male athletes are portrayed in media coverage of the Summer Olympic Games. Beliefs about female athletes reflect gender in society. Jones, Murrell, and Jackson (1999) found that female athletes in male sports used frequent male-to-female comparisons and comments that had little to do with sports or the athletes performance. Sports broadcasters become conformed to a central belief that women are not as athletic as their male counterparts, so are often stereotyped as not athletic. Compare to female athletes in female sports focused more on performance, but still reinforcing female stereotypes. Billings, Angelini, and Duke’s (2010) as cited in Sage (1998) argues that organized sport has been a powerful cultural arena for reinforcing the ideology and actuality of male superiority and dominance. Also demonstrating traditions that subordinate women in society.

While significant changes have been made towards equity in athletics, we must still continue to watch and record our progress and make sure that our society’s young women have the rights and opportunities that we all have as human beings. A study shows that high school girls still receive almost 1 million fewer opportunities to play sports than high school as boys do (Andrew 329). The difference between media coverage of males and females has a corresponding effect on the participation of girls in sports activities, it is difficult for girls to have role models as athletes as few are marketed in the mainstream of media.

From the three network affiliates they studied, they found that 96.3 percent of the coverage was for men’s sports and women only received 1.6 percent (Messner and Cooky 4). When analyzing the coverage of Sports Center, which is arguably the most popular sports show on television, they found that women still only received just 1.4 percent of their coverage (4). This study also found that 100 percent of the Sports Center programs had a lead story that was about men’s sports (4). Even the most renowned and credible sports show, which only shows sports all year long, does not even provide women’s sports with equal attention. Even more shocking than this was that the study also revealed that reporters devoted more coverage to men’s sports that were out of season than they did women’s sports that were actually in season (4). This can be extremely disrespectful to female athletes when their sport is pushed aside and ignored so that a men’s sport that is not even being played can be covered by the media. These women put all their effort into performing their sport at the highest level, but their media attention gets replaced by men who are in their off-season.

In February, the third annual Status of Women in the U.S. Media report came out which showed women being vast underrepresented in media making up around 40.3% (only 36.3% for 2013 in newsrooms) of the workforce being women. When they tallied up how many women were staffed at both television and print journalism organizations who were hired as sports journalist, the number falls drastically to a mere 14.6% (Women’s Media Center).