Stereotypes In Women's Sports

In today’s world, men’s sports seem to always be in the spotlight while women’s sports do not draw much attention, as if women who play sports are not taken seriously. This happens on all levels of sports, and I have personally experienced it myself through basketball in high school. While the gym would be full for any of the boys’ games, our games had very little support with almost empty bleachers. When it comes to the professional level, when women’s sports do get covered by the media, most people judge female athletes more on their looks rather than their athletic skill, which is negative and unfair.

Women athletes are often exploited by marketers and advertisers who want to increase their revenues and bottom line sales. Advertisers focus more on the women’s “skin” and sex appeal rather than women’s athletes, leaving the impression that woman are not as talented in the sports as male athletes (Roenigk 1). Many spectators and advertisers do not take female professional sports seriously and think that female athletes play more for fun. Therefore, female athletes do not receive as much attention for their talent. Advertisers exploit women athletes by focusing on their looks and appearances. Advertisers focus on the female athlete’s sex appeal rather than talent (Julius 2). Those who are more talented can be drafted to play professionally where they receive a salary. However, marketers still focus more on male sports. Therefore, increased revenue continues as spectators buy tickets to watch professional male athletes. The female athletes continue to generate revenues from sex appeal and looks over talent. This professional salary in no way compares to the pay received by professional male athletes.

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.

Male sports receive more recognition than female sports. “Additionally, in a study of four major newspapers--USA Today, the Boston Globe, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Morning news--women-only sports stories totaled just 3.5 percent of all sports stories.” (Collins Live Strong). Has one ever heard of Lisa Leslie, Kerri Walsh, or Chris Evert? Lisa Leslie is a WNBA basketball player. Kerri Walsh is a famous volleyball player for Team USA. Chris Evert is a tennis player. Has anyone heard of David Beckham, Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Michael Jordan or Lebron James? Those well known names do not need any explanation. However, those female athletes have worked just as hard and have achieved so much for their team that they should receive just as much recognition. Whenever an individual searches through the sports section of a newspaper they are bombarded with news about male sports, but what about female sports? Mckenna Peterson is a twelve year old athlete who plays basketball. While she was reading the Dicks Sporting Goods Magazine, she realized that there were no female athletes featured in the magazine. “McKenna added in her letter that the only women featured in the catalog are sitting in the stands, or dressed as cheerleaders in the coupons” (Murray ABC). Editors of sports magazines need to take a closer look at their content and not be so discriminatory and realize that they could draw in female readers by including female athletes. Currently, it is so hard to imagine that a sports magazine would not feature female athletes along with male athletes. More people would run up to famous male athletes in public than famous female athletes. For example, more people would take notice of Derek Jeter than Jennie Finch if someone saw them in public. People are glued to their TV screens while watching

In sports there is huge gender inequality in the media with women athletes often only receiving attention for having good looks or the best body, rather than their athletic abilities. Men, however, don’t receive this attention and people only focus on their athletic prowess. This report will review and analyse two examples of how the media portrays different genders in accordance with the following question: “How does the media portray men and women in sport?

Female athletes and sports leagues are viewed as less important than men’s professional athletics. This is because gender stereotypes are still evident in our society, which is shown in the way women are presented in sports media and that sports leadership roles are mainly male oriented in our society. There is a small percentage of female voicing at the higher levels of sports organizations, in Australian and Canadian leagues. This reflects why we need more women at the heads of these organization to make women’s sports more diverse in terms of both genders. Kids grow up watching male dominated leagues and most families don’t ever watch any female sporting leagues and don’t introduce their kids to those leagues. Young boys have all these male athletes to look up to and young girls don’t have that same opportunity as there is nowhere to watch female athletes. When female athletes are presented in media they are usually sexualized and only viewed for their physical features. This research essay will explore how women are viewed as second class athletes and why they are presented in media less than men.

Gender representation and in particular misrepresentation is a key issue within sport and media today as female coverage of sport is overlooked in all forms of mainstream media. This issue is what we, as a group of 3, had to tackle and present to our academic peers in a student led seminar session. The issue derives from the main theme of sport and media and their relationship but could also be said to have direct links to other themes such as sport and (in) equality. Gender representation comes under both media and equality in terms of broader topics because it is the concern of the media to help broadcast more female sport and raise awareness of the inequality which exists to the wide audience it has to target, this doesn’t happen enough currently. Research by Cooky et al. (2013) suggests that female sports coverage on ESPN sport takes up around 3% of coverage time which is a shocking disparity compared to men’s coverage on the same channel. It also found that 0 news stories on WNBA were published out of season across multiple news channels while the NBA had 72 stories. Studying this topic is particularly important to understand historically and culturally why this problem exists as well as to look at the negative ideologies which exist within sports media around the subject of gender representation.

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.

Gender stereotyping in sports media is something we see everyday in magazines and on TV. Since sports were invented, males have dominated one of Canada’s largest pastimes. Reasons for this being physicality and strength, but as time progressed women began to become more involved in the culture of sport. Today there is almost an equal amount of women participating in sports as man, yet women are still not being represented with the same approach as men. About a month ago I found a video online that followed a sports reporter who was trying to make a point about gender stereotyping within sports media. He would interview professional male athletes but rather than ask them the typical interview questions we see in male sports, such as “has your workout routine changed since…” but rather asked them questions that are typically related to female athlete interviews such as one that was asked to swimmer Michael Phelps “Shaving your body hair gives you an edge in the pool, but how about your love life”, or “any comments about reports about your girlish figure”. At the end of the video they show real women athletes being asked these types of questions in real interviews. The men’s reactions of embarrassment to disgust vs. the women’s reactions of showing no surprise to being asked these derogatory questions, says it all. It is no surprise that the sexualization of female athletes is something all too common in sports media. We’ll be looking into the idea of sexualisation in

Messing with NFL players nearly twice his size in his weekly "superlatives" segment was risky business! There should have been somebody who warned Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show's about this.

Gender classification is a predominant topic within today’s sports and is most broadly understood through the portrayals of sports media. Through overt and covert ways, sports media has continued to promote a masculine representation of sports (Millington & Wilson, 2010; Messener, Duncan, & Jensen, 1993). By understanding the way in which sports media portrays sports, one can recognize how masculinity has dominated the world of sports. With the aid of two unique studies of sports media, this paper will critique the way in which media has effected the gendered depiction of sports.

Females have endured countless years of sexism within sports that should be immediately stopped. While many people feel they aren’t being sexist towards female athletes, they indeed are because when they use phrases like “Playing like a girl”, it is almost always used in a negative connotation. Young girls are taught that “Playing like a girl” is something to be ashamed of. Image, a frustrated middle school boys coach calling a

Girls and boys don't play on the same sports teams in the National leagues. There is not one boys and girls team. I think that girls should be able to play on sports teams with guys in the major leagues.

The topic I chose for this assignment is women and sports. I am curious about the behaviors of how women are perceived in the sports world. As you may know there are women becoming referees in professional sports. There are also a couple of assistant coaches in the NBA and NFL that are female.

Almost everyone likes sports, whether it’s boys or girls, old people or and young people it is something that most people can bond over. When kids are growing up they often play sports with other kids their same age and most often same gender. Some say that it is unfair and even discriminative, while others stand by what has become the social norm. The argument can go both ways but when it gets boiled down it is much easier to see that girls should not be allowed to play on boy’s sports teams.