The results are depressing in regards to coverage of female athletes and given the results, you would think we are still watching sports on the TV pictured here.
Here are some highlights of the report:
Of the three network affiliates sampled in the study, men’s sports received 96.3% of the airtime, women’s sports 1.6%, and gender neutral topics 2.1%. This is a precipitous decline in the coverage of women’s sports since 2004, when 6.3% of the airtime was devoted to women’s sports, and the lowest proportion ever recorded in this study.
100% of the SportsCenter programs and 100% of the sports news shows in the sample led with a men’s sports story.
Good news? Past studies observed that women athletes (and women spectators) were frequently portrayed in demeaning ways—as sexual objects, or as the brunt of commentators’ sarcastic humor in stories on marginal pseudo‐sports. There was far less of this sort of sexist humor about women in 2009, though this may in part reflect that women in any form were increasingly absent from the broadcasts.
With female sport participation at record levels, these results are confounding… but for those who study gender and sports, probably not surprising. I encourage you to read the report and see the graphs for yourself.
The first full day of the 5th IWG World Conference on Women in Sport just concluded. Last night was the opening keynote in which Cathy Freeman was in attendance (see photo). A video of Freeman’s 400m race at the 2000 Sydney Olympics was shown. Freeman was the first-ever Aborginal women to win a gold medal and she won it under intense pressure as the favorite on her home soil– still gives me goosebumps. I got to talk to her a bit and she was very gracious.
Dr. Sarah Leberman, Olympian Cathy Freeman, and me (L to R)
My head is swimming with so much information and after meeting so many interesting women from around the world. There are more than 500 delegates in attendance from over 70 countries from every region of the world. The conference charge is PLAY. THINK. CHANGE and emerging themes are the lack of women in positions of power in sport, lack of media coverage, how to increase female participation, and how sport can be a vehicle for social change. This is a very well run and organized conference and it immediately reaffirmed to me that I love the work I do and that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing with my life—attempting to make a difference in the lives of females in and through sport.
The morning keynote by Dr. Toni Bruce (New Zealand) was about media coverage. She argued that mainstream media coverage of female sportswomen has not changed much over 30 years so perhaps it is time we adopt a new paradigm, one that is realistic. She said that new media is a place women can create their own content and not have to rely on traditional media. The Tucker Center’s Fall Distinguished Lecture was on this very topic-women’s sport and social media, so I’ve written about this previously (click here, here, & here). Bruce gave the Women Talk Sports Network a shout out as an example of how new media for female athlete coverage can work.
However I disagreed when she said that “content is Queen and quality is secondary.” I think that quality is important because if user-generated content is of poor quality or just reinforces the same old gender stereotypes, than I think it could be just as damaging. The need for media literacy and education around how to portray female athletes and why it is important, is a necessary next step in creating real social change in women’s sport. However, in Bruce’s defense because new media is an opt-in endeavor, perhaps quality is not much of an issue because the consumers are already fans of women’s sport. I doubt YouTube or blogging sites attract new fans to women’s sport, but it does provide a place for those desperately looking for coverage or information outside main stream media. However, I don’t think “we” should abandon fighting for equal coverage in mainstream media because if you see female athletes on TV, it sends a message that women’s sport is important and valued. My favorite quote so far was by our emcee who commenting on the scarcity of women in positions of power, she repeated a quote she’d read, “There is no glass ceiling, only a thick layer of men.” Elizabeth Broderick, one of our keynote speakers wrote a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald titled “Women hit the grass ceiling” which is very clever!
The Aussies claim they are “sport mad” and I’m trying to discern it they are more crazy about sports than we are in the USA. How do you measure that? Is that a good thing, to be the most “sport mad”? Even though media coverage of women’s sport in Australia is no better than in the USA, right now I am watching a women’s soccer match on prime time network TV of the Matildas (the Aussie national women’s soccer team. The men’s national team is called the Socceroos) verses Korea on the Aussie ABC network (not the same ABC of the USA). You would NEVER see a women’s soccer game on the USA ABC network at 5pm on a Friday evening. More to come….
I became aware of this video, via a friend’s post on Facebook (thanks EH). It is a video of girls who appear to be between the ages of 8-10 years of age, dancing to Beyonce’s “Put A Ring On It”. Despite the face these girls are great dancers, this video is an exemplar about all that is wrong with girl culture today. It also is a shining example of #FAIL in the parenting department!!
I’ve written often about how media routinely sexualizes female athletes, rather than focus on their athletic abilities and achievements. This Vanity Fair piece and June issue is a rare example of the same pattern for male athletes. The argument is not that male athletes are never sexualized. The main point is that female athletes are disproportionately sexualized in the media (female athletes only receive 6-8% of all sport media coverage ) compared to male athletes. The other point is that when female athletes are sexualized it often undermines perceptions of their athletic abilities, while when male athletes are sexualized it rarely leads to the perception their athletic achievements are questionable. What do you think?
I just posted new videos of two research talks I gave in the last week on girls and women in sport.
The first talk was a Tucker Table on “Coaching Youth Soccer as a Token Female” and the other was “Current Research of The Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport” for the St. Paul AAUW.
I love March Madness. Every year I wait for the March Madness cover of Sports Illustrated. Every year I do a critique of the cover. Now that I have a blog, I can post the critique for the first time as I started this blog post March Madness in 2009 (April 5, 2009 to be exact). Here are the results of this year’s cover(s) [there are 4 versions of the March Madness cover this year]. The major point in this critique is to demonstrate that male power and dominance in sport is reproduced by the images portrayed and selected on this one cover. An equally important point is that women’s basketball, female coaches, female referees, and female sport fans are literally erased, marginalized and portrayed as secondary to team mascots.
RESULTS:
1 giant male basketball player dunking a basketball (all 4 covers are of males dunking, despite the fact that Baylor’s Brittney Griner is well known for the fact she can dunk, thus it would of been feasible to feature a well known regional FEMALE player dunking)
2 male referees
3 cheerleaders (2 of which are discernibly female)
4 fans (3 of which are male, the 4th is not discernible)
5 coaches–ALL of whom are male, and I think they are all coaches of men’s teams. This is despite the fact UConn Head Coach Geno Auriemma’s team is on a very long winning streak (74 and counting as of 3/28/10) and is been touted as the BEST women’s basketball team ever.
~9 female basketball players (2 of which are almost not discernible as one positioned under the giant dunking male’s player right foot who I think is UConn’s Maya Moore and one player from Texas(?) is under his gluteus maximus, otherwise known as one’s buttocks)
16 Mascots
A LOT of male basketball player (roughly I counted ~77…~8 times the number of female athletes portrayed. I’m pretty sure the ratio of male to female basketball players in the NCAA is not 1:8. In fact, according to NCAA research the 2007-08 numbers are 15,307 women and 17,081 male basketball players)
In my last blog, I surmised that when the bracket for the Men’s NCAA basketball tournament was released, it would not be labeled as “The Men’s” NCAA Tournament Bracket 2010, unlike the women’s bracket. Sure enough…I was right. To see “the bracket” click here.
It’s time for March Madness! I love this time of year! I just watched the ESPN selection and the ESPN-U follow up show for the women. Here is the bracket in case you want to download it. I have some cheers and jeers.
Cheers!
I was excited the online ESPN bracket didn’t have the qualifying “Women’s” in front of NCAA Tournament Bracket 2010.
ESPN did a great feature on Baylor’s Brittney Griner, that focused primarily on her SKILLS, numerous ways she can dunk, and how her ability and talent are setting a new standards of excellence for women’s basketball.
I loved the fact there were four very qualified women–Doris Burke, Rebecca Lobo, Kara Lawson, and Carolyn Peck--hosting the shows, along with Trey Wingo.
Jeers!
The .pdf version of the ESPN bracket however, was labeled as the “Women’s”. I will bet my 2010-11 pay cut that when the men’s bracket is complete, there will be no “Men’s” label on any bracket. Why? Because the men’s bracket is the real bracket, and the women’s bracket must be defined and qualified as the lesser bracket by labeling it the “women’s”. This is a common pattern of marginalizing women’s sports documented over time by sport media scholars. Another example is the NBA and WNBA.
The presence of the female sport commentators was undermined both at the very beginning and end of the ESPN-U show by the following comments:
a. At the opening of the follow-up show on ESPN U, after Trey Wingo (seated in the middle, with 2 women on each side) introduced each of his four co-hosts, Carolyn Peck made a comment that the ensemble was like Charlie’s Angels. To that end Wingo asked if that made him “Charlie”, and the banter went on for another 20 seconds with the women confirming that his wan indeed Charlie and they were the Angels.
b. At the end of the follow-up show on ESPN U, as Trey Wingo was signing off and repeated all the names of his female co-hosts, his very last comment was “Look at Doris’ shoes, she went shopping!” and then the camera cut out.
Why is this problematic? Because both comments undermine the credibility of highly qualified and experienced female sport media journalists by focusing on highly feminine roles and symbols of femininity. Given these four women are clear statistical minorities in their field, they are under a constant barrage of scrutiny their male colleagues do not have to endure. They also have to look feminine enough so they do not feed the flame of enduring homophobia in women’s basketball.
A survey conducted by thePew Research Centeroutlines some interesting trends pertaining to viewing sports and sport fans (thanks EH!). In a new report titled Olympics Bridge Gender Divide In Sports Interest, based on the data more women than men were excited and looking forward to watching the Olympics.
Today I’m heading to Chicago to attend the Blogs With Balls 3.0 Conference and be part of the “You Gotta Fight for Your Right…to Blog: An Ethical and Legal Primer on Sport Media in 2010″ panel. I’m on this panel with some very well known sports bloggers (insert the Sesame Street song…”one of these kids doesn’t belong here”).
One Sport Voice 