The Great Gender Debate
Inequality of Women Athletes in Print MediaIn the United States, sports contribute billions of dollars to corporate America every year, making it the sixth largest industry in the United States. According to an article in Coven Magazine, only 0.5% of that wealth is invested into women’s sports, and the amount of women athletes and the coverage they receive from traditional print media reflects that startlingly low statistic.
Just take a look at any mainstream media outlet covering sports and you’ll find that the majority of stories are “for men by men.” According to a study done by Jay Coakley, on average 90% of sports coverage is focused on men. After conducting a textual analysis focused on four mainstream print media outlets, we found that our own conclusions were not far off.
In a daily edition of The Austin American-Statesman, there were a total of twenty-five stories focusing on sports, and of those twenty-five only three featured women athletes or women coaches. Not to mention, one of the three was a negative story about a successful female track and field coach here at the University of Texas who has recently been placed on academic probation.
That same day, a copy of The New York Times covered twenty sports related stories, all of which featured men. On the home page of ESPN.com, a total of sixteen stories were featured, none of them focusing primarily on women. The Sports Illustrated website too showed a similar trend. Out of the twenty-three links leading to sports stories, only a one single article featured a woman, and she just happened to be wearing a swimsuit. Go figure.
While it should be noted that the analysis did not include links to specific videos or blogs, the findings are still pretty unsettling. Out of a complete total of 84 stories, 80 of them dealt with men and the discussion of your typical male dominated sports such as NASCAR. Through our analysis, we have concluded that only 4.8% of the coverage focused on women.
According to the graph taken from Messner's Gender in Televised Sports, women's coverage in the media has been steadily declining since 1989 up until 2009.
History of Women in Sports
American women have struggled to be taken seriously as athletes for more than two centuries. Throughout the years, females have fought against the stereotypes of being too fragile to play sports. The first ancient Olympic games can be traced back to 776 BC, but women were not admitted as athletes until 1912. The Title IX of the Educational Amendment of 1972, stating that any educational program receiving Federal assistance can lose its funding if it discriminates on the basis of sex, marked a turning point for women's sports. This legislation finally gave women athletes access to better coaches, equipments and playing arenas.
It’s quite difficult to dispute the fact that sports in the United States are a male-dominated arena where women are rarely taken seriously. The genders are fighting for the limited resource (if you could really even call it that) of mass media coverage. The unequal distribution of this limited resource highlights an age-old conflict. The question we find ourselves asking is why does this inequality still exist?
According to an article in Sports Digest, much of the foundation for the lack of representation of women athletes begins with early gender socialization through both our society and media. The author explains how young girls are often taught that they should only play "girly" sports such as gymnastics, cheerleading, figure skating, or volleyball, while the more aggressive, rugged sports such as hockey and football should be left for the boys. If the media portrayed women in the same way as men, it would go against the internalized social roles. So these stereotypes are reflect more on the inequality that exists within our culture and less on the actual biases in the media.
This kind of socialization perpetuates a system where fewer women athletes exist in general, furthermore reinforcing social norms of men using sports as a means of demonstrating their strength and dominance. Women are viewed as more fragile and feminine. The reason girls don’t join football teams goes back to our traditional, learned ideas and beliefs about the definitions of masculinity and femininity. Boys are taught to embody aggression, strength and dominance, while girls are typically viewed as more emotional, weaker and submissive.
Cooley's "Looking Glass Self"
Charles Horton Cooley coined the term "the looking glass self", which states that the self emerges from our ability to assume the point of view of others and thereby imagine how they see us. This social term relates to females of every age in the sense that they truly and wholeheartedly believe they must be feminine and 'pretty' to fulfill their gender role of being a woman. Regardless of how strong or aggressive they may be on the field, most still want to be depicted as feminine outside of the sports world for the fear of being thought of as masculine or even being called "dike" or "lesbian" by others. Their self-image has arisen directly from their ability to imagine how others see them.
The Sexual Portrayal of Women in Sports
The portrayal of women in sport’s coverage provides the most sensible explanation as to why they are broadcast less than men. Coverage of women’s sports typically focuses on advertising the woman as more vulnerable and feminine, whereas men’s sports are portrayed as entertaining and aggressive, which in general is more preferable to watch. It has become socially unacceptable for a woman to show herself as strong or threatening, which is society’s idea of masculine. However, it is nearly impossible to present a sports team successfully without using these stereotypes. As a result, many sports fans choose to watch mens’ sports over women’s simply because of the way in which they are advertised. Many women athletes appear on the covers of magazines scantily clad and separated from the environment in which they compete.
Both of these people are professional tennis players featured on the cover of the same magazine, yet they are shown in completely different ways. The male is seen as a powerful figure of athleticism, while the female is depicted in a vulnerable, seductive pose appearing to be lying in bed.
Andrew Strautman explains in his article “Portrayal Of Women in the Media” saying, “The portrayal between men and women on sports magazine covers is immensely different.” First of all, the number of times that women have actually reached the front page of the cover is sustainably lower than that of men athletes. According to Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi from Women’s Talk Sports, In five years, female athletes have appeared on 5 of 168 ESPN covers (Lavoi, 1). According to Strautman, women are not only receiving less representation on sports magazine covers, but also a whole different kind of coverage for they are portrayed as sexualized objects rather than athletes. In contrast, men are showcased as athletic beings showing off their ruggedness and strength.
By employing the sociological imagination, we are able to look beyond the face value of these photos and observe how they both reinforce our internalized view of women as inferior to men while also supporting an inequality between the genders. As seen in these pictures, women are obviously portrayed as a symbol of sexuality rather than one of strength or talent. Sports are thought of as intense, aggressive and competitive, so typically viewers choose to watch men's sports for this very reason. Most people consider women's sports to be less exciting because they aren't as rough and hand-on with one another. The media’s job is to maintain high ratings by serving their viewer’s interests, so they continually contribute to the idea that women play a sexual role in society, rather than highlight their athletic abilities.
Although the battle for equality is far from over, women are making strides as far as participation in sports. While women athletes still struggle with negative stereotypes and are certainly not on even footing with men, women participation in sports is much more accepted now than in the past. Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, legislation increasing opportunities for women to participate in high school sports, the number of women athletes has increased dramatically (National Women’s Law Center). Strong women athletes such as Serena and Venus Williams, Mia Hamm and Missy Franklin are paving the way for a positive portrayal of women athletes in future media coverage.
References:
Coakley, Jay. Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.
Conley, Dalton. (2008). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist. NY: W. W. Norton.
"Table of Contents." Inequalityprojects. Wikispace, 2012. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
