Category: women & girls in sport

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The Minnesota Lynx: A Case About Media Coverage for Female Athletes

I live in Minneapolis and am a fan, advocate and scholar about gender issues in sport, particularly girls and women in sport. In the last two months, while I haven’t blogged much I have been keeping in eye on happenings around women in sport. Media coverage, or should I say the lack thereof, has been on my mind a great deal.

An anomaly was the 2011 Women’s World Cup aired and covered by ESPN = Fantastic coverage of dramatic competition, athleticism and serious athletes. Unfortunately what we see far too often is the trivialization, erasure and sexualization of female athletes…which I’ve written about a lot.  This last point is why I haven’t blogged much lately. I’m just plain depressed and discouraged that over and over again these patterns emerge, despite record numbers of females participating in sport in the post Title IX era. How many times can I write the same thing over and over without anything changing…and in fact, in most cases, is getting worse?

6 Ways Media Present Female Athletes

I’ll say it again…media coverage by major networks of female athletes has DECREASED in the last 10 years and is now down to a dismal 1.6%. (What would the Twins’ attendance or interest in the team look like if we only read 1.6% of the time about the team in the sports media or if we didn’t hear and read non-stop coverage of the team—even in the off season?)

Dave Zirin pointed out that GQ left out an entire gender when naming their 25 coolest athletes.

If you want to read a great critique and column titled “Sex Sells Sex, Not Women’s Sports” in the special sports issue of The Nation magazine written by my colleague Dr. Mary Jo Kane, Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, and get up to speed about why these trends persists and why it is problematic, I’d encourage you to read it.

You can also see an exceptional slide show of the six categories of representation of female athletes commonly witnessed in the sport media from athleticism to soft core porn if you click here. Kane argues the majority of sport media and marketers are complicit and unquestioning that sex sells women’ sport and “believe that reaffirming traditional notions of femininity and heterosexuality is a critical sales strategy.”

Ironically, in our own backyard the WNBA Minnesota Lynx are providing an interesting case study for sport media scholars. Currently the Lynx have the best record in the WNBA and have secured a playoff bid. The Lynx have a great deal of athletic talent: Whalen, Wiggens, Bruson, Augustus, and Moore are some of the players lighting up the scoreboard this season. Meanwhile…the MN Twins are struggling, the NBA is facing a lockout and the Timberwolves were horrible last season, the NFL is limping back to full speed after their lockout and the Vikings will struggle, and the NHL and MN Wild have their own issues.

Case in point: Today I got a call from a local media outlet to discuss why the Lynx are getting very little coverage despite a winning season. I was ready. I got a call 10mns later, the story was canceled– “Something better had come up”. How can people get interested in the Lynx if they don’t hear about them and the team isn’t covered?

I know for a fact that the Lynx are selling more tickets this year, over 1,000 more a game, than last year. Fans are filling the seats. People ARE interested and DO care about women’s sport. The Lynx are talented and exciting to watch. Hey sport media….PAY ATTENTION AND GIVE THE LYNX THE COVERAGE THEY DESERVE! Sport media journalists argue they will cover women’s sport when interest is there. Here is a clue: NOW IS THE TIME.

Here is a novel chicken-egg idea: The more media coverage you give the Lynx, the more people will attend and the more interest is generated.

The ironic thing is, people are interested DESPITE poor media coverage of the Lynx.

Even more ironic, people are interested in the Lynx because they are GREAT ATHLETES and are fun to watch not because the Lynx players are being marketed and portrayed in sexy and hyper-feminine ways.

Fans of women’s basketball and women’s sport want to see and read about athleticism and see quality play. They are getting that and Moore with the Minnesota Lynx.

added 9/1/11: Watch me talk to WCCO’s Jason DeRusha on the “Good Question” discuss the lack of coverage of the MN Lynx.

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Some good, some bad outcomes of the #wwc2011

1. You have to hand it to Japan. They won the game and many hearts along the way. I’d like to think this a universal sentiment, but unfortunately it is not. To see backlash, racism and jingoism from fans pertaining to the WWC Final click here.

2. I find it interesting that the “success” of the WWC has been attributed to Title IX. Wendy Parker provides an alternative viewpoint here.

3. SI.com columnist Ann Killion writes “In the past, women’s teams were expected to do more than just play. They had to build a movement, change their culture, make history. This team is liberated from that.” She lists some things the current US players do not need to do…but what are the responsibilities of female athletes? What should they be?

4. Dave Zirin @EdgeofSports and The Nation writes highlights the “raunch culture” of women’s sports in his piece. “raunch culture” is when women athletes buy into the idea that it’s somehow empowering to display their naked bodies for men’s magazines.” Some members of the women’s French national soccer team decided to provide resistance to raunch culture and the idea that sex sells women’s sport by providing a caption: “Is this how we should show up before you come to our games?” (to see the accompanying picture click here)

5. Despite some of the negative outcomes of the WWC2011, I’m happy to report that much of the coverage and commentary seemed to allude to the fact that women’s soccer is fun to watch because the women are GOOD ATHLETES.

The WWC2011 picture above was created in Wordle.

6. Based on the data, the Women’s World Cup Soccer Final set a new Twitter record for tweets per second, at 7,196….more than killing Bin Laden, the Royal Wedding, the SuperBowl or NBA finals!

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Tidbits and Stories Related to Women’s Sport

Since there is so much going on in women’s sport right now I thought I’d post some stories, links and videos of interest.

WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2011 (WWC, #wwc2011)!

USA player Abby Wambach celebrates her goal against Brazil in final minutes of game

Who has caught the fever and excitement? I’m torn about the coverage because the WWC has been fantastically covered by ESPN and ESPN2. However given that coverage of women’s sport has DECLINED since the 1999 USA World Cup win, women’s sport is only on ESPN Sports Center is less than 2% time, and appears only 1.6% on major networks, we should consider the big picture of overall coverage patterns (for the full report by Messner & Cooky, 2010 click here). When female athletes are featured, it is usually in ways that sexualize them, which is why the WWC coverage has been such a nice example of covering women’s athleticsm. Just for fun I typed in “women’s sport” into Google Images, and the FIRST picture I got was this one of beach volleyball. It really makes me wonder why this picture is first…one step forward, one step back….

Is this the best picture to represent "women's sport" on Google?

There has been some interesting dialogue about the coverage of WWC 2011 in comparison to the WWC 1999. Until Sunday’s game unforunately the WWC was barely a blip on the radar. While fans watch hours of men’s sport that is boring, lopsided, and not compelling, it appears that women’s sport is only “watchable” when it is drama filled, dramatic spectacle.

Read the SI.com piece by Georgia Turner here, and read Wendy Parker’s blog on why she is sick of female athletes having to be “role models” and “good girls” and why she thinks the way to promote female athletes is through their athleticism (well played Wendy!). I also like Jennifer Doyle’s From a Left Wing blogs about the WWC. There are so many good blogs about the WWC on Women’s Talk Sports, I can’t possibly mention them all.

Rachel Maddow did a great segment on MSNBC about the USA v. Brazil game and fans’ reactions to that game (most of whom are young males!). The fan segments challenge notions that young men aren’t interested or don’t watch women’s sport. LOVE IT.

However, just when there is hope (not just Hope Solo, the goal keeper for the USA WWC team) for legitimate coverage of women’s sport, I get a link sent to me about this story on the WWC with the headline “Brazil Didn’t Mind Losing to the U.S. Women Because the Goalie’s Hot.” SIGH….another step back.

And just for fun and unrelated to WWC, watch a funny and clever video of Justin Timberlake as he tries his hand at a variety of college sports, leading up to his presentation of the Capital One Cup trophy at the ESPYs.

Let’s not leave out men’s sport. Read After Atalanta’s blog critiquing an espnW opinion piece about “overweight MLB players” Good stuff!

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Recent focus on female athlete “unifems”

The recent focus on the athletic attire of female athletes, “unifems”, concerns me for many reasons. I write “unifem” instead of “uniform” to make a point. Most of the discussions about what is to be worn, or not, in competition is largely about underlying concerns that female athletes remain and at least look “feminine.”

Aside from unifem concerns, some female athletes like some members of the German soccer team, purposefully pose nude in magazines like Playboy that exploit women so they can be perceived as less “butchy” and tomboy-like (i.e., “sweet”, feminine, and thus heterosexual).

Let’s be clear–concerns, policies and rules about females athlete uniforms are usually about making the uniforms smaller, tighter and a more feminine color. These concerns are usually couched under the guise of “performance” or “safety” or both. To my knowledge, and I will stand corrected, that aside from some initial data on compression wear, very little empirical evidence exists that demonstrates that a smaller or tighter uniform will improve performance for athletes (aside from the razor suit in swimming…which is under scrutiny and I believe is now banned). If uniform size were about performance, you would also see scantily clad male athletes.I am also unaware of any sport marketing evidence that demonstrates that smaller, tighter, more feminine uniforms actually increases ticket sales, interest in the sport, or sponsorships. Show me the evidence.

It is my opinion the discussion about female athlete uniforms is first, outdated, and second sexist.

Let me summarize some of the very recent discussions pertaining to unifems. Reminder: this IS 2011, but attempts to marginalize, sexualize and exploit the female athletic body and female athletes is alive and well, and I think getting more egregious.

UNIFEM EXAMPLES

1. To create a more “attractive presentation,” the Badminton World Federation decided all elite level female players must wear a skirt or dress while competing. The complete NYT story here.

2. The lack of attire for the Lingerie Football League earlier this spring I have already written about (and no, I still don’t consider the LFL a sport, but I do support the notion that some, probably a good %, of the women in the LFL are real athletes.)

3. A female Muslim weight lifter, Kulsoom Abdullah, who wants to complete but keep with religious traditions by covering her entire body, aside from her hands and face, has sparked debate at the international level. Many argue this policy is racist and Islamophobic, in addition to being sexist as male Muslim athletes do not have the barrier of covering in public that impedes athletic performance.

4. The Iranian women’s soccer team was in tears after being forced to forfeit a 2012 London Olympics qualifying match this past weekend because it showed up to play in hijabs, and some argue that “FIFA makes things worse for women.”

5. Twitter blew up when a picture of tennis player Serena Williams in a hot pink cat suit appeared on the internet.

So what is going on with the recent barrage of unifem incidents? Why now? Is this further evidence of the gains women are making in sport?

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2 Steps Backwards for Female Athletes

2 Steps to Nowhere are Better Than 2 Steps Back

Today I came across two articles in the New York Times related to female athletes and women’s sport. Neither contains good news and in fact both articles highlight that despite gains made in the post Title IX era, female sport participation is still constantly under attack.

Sport sociologists term the participation of females in sport and the conflicts that arise over who will play and under what conditions as “contested terrain.” Contested terrain means both oppression and resistance exist simultaneously and that existing power dynamics and social inequalities are both reinforced and challenged in and through sport.

Katie Thomas wrote a piece titled  College Teams, Relying on Deception, Undermine Gender Equity about how many college athletic teams are padding the number of female athletes on their rosters in order to make it appear the school is in compliance with Title IX.

update 4/29/11: Read the Women’s Sports Foundation response to these deceptive Title IX practices here. In the response Kathryn Olson, CEO of the WSF, said, “If an athletic department is willing to manipulate its sports programs by creating an artificial veneer of fairness among its male and female students with these laws on the books, one must wonder what would happen without Title IX.”

Alice Dreger wrote a piece titled Redefining the Sexes in Unequal Terms about how a new rule pertaining to the level of functional testosterone in female athletes is a sexist form of biochemical policing that male athletes do not endure.

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The NBA’s First (and only) Female Scout

Bonnie Jill Laflin

Okay…here you go readers….

A graduate student sent me breaking news this morning (thanks EH!) about a picture and article of the first and only female NBA scout. She is pictured here in a PETA ad.

I’m not 100% certain, but I’m guessing PETA has not featured any naked male NBA scouts.

I have many questions….Why would Ms. Laflin choose to let herself be portrayed like this?  What is her motivation to pose or be featured in this particular way? Why be naked? Can she get her message across with more clothes on? Why do we really need a sexualized image of a female to encourage people to become a vegetarian? Do we need to objectify women to recruit vegetarians? This is definitely an example of how sex can “sell” just about ANYTHING!!!….or at least we perceive it does. The double meanings behind the text and image are rich.

Other questions to consider. Does being featured like this as the ONLY female scout for the NBA pave the way for future female scouts to be perceived as knowledgeable and legitimate? Did Laflin think about how this picture might undermine her credibility as an NBA scout? Will this encourage little girls to want to go into professional sport scouting as a career? So many questions….

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Reasons for Bad Sportsmanship in Adult Recreational Leagues?

I have been a competitive athlete my entire life. I have seen my fair share of bad sportsmanship in all the sports I’ve played and coached. I am hoping that you, the readers, can help explain why adult women playing in recreational leagues demonstrate some of the worst sportsmanship I have encountered (I’m sure it happens in men’s leagues as well, but I can’t speak to that).

Over the weekend I played in the Stick It To Cancer hockey tournament up at the National Sports Center Center in Blaine, MN. I have played in this tournament for a number of years as it is for a good cause and you get to play some fun, relaxed hockey. This weekend however, two of the three teams we played has such bad sportsmanship that it took all the fun out of it. It was so bad I wanted to just skate the bench and not play the rest of the game for fear of being injured. Examples of what I saw and heard:

1. multiple cross checking penalties (which in my opinion are the worst, because you can really get injured)

2. hits after the whistle

3. trash talking such as “Get up you wimp” after a player had been clipped from behind and landed awkwardly on her shoulder

4. hits in open ice away from the puck

Why do people behave this way in a recreational tournament that is FOR CHARITY? We weren’t playing in league play. We weren’t trying out for the Olympics. We were playing for anything but a place in a charity tournament. In fact the WORST behavior I witnessed was in the game my team played for who would be 7th and 8th place out of 8 teams (yes, the toilet bowl game….we lost BTW).  We played hard, but no one really cared if we won or lost. IT WAS FOR FUN. Well that is what I thought anyway.

Possible reasons why this type of behavior persists:

  • people take themselves too seriously
  • the person is just obnoxious on a everyday basis, on and off the ice
  • the person enjoys trying to injure others on purpose
  • the person wants to win at the expense of acting like a gracious and sportsmanlike human being
  • the person’s identity is tied up with the sport, and therefore winning and losing is perceived to be a reflection of themselves
  • Immaturity

Do you have other explanations for this type of behavior? Has this been your experience? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What everyone should be striving for is more of the attitude of Team Orange, an idea created by a woman I got to play with this weekend Lora Wilkinson. As she writes on the team website, “Team Orange is a state of mind. It’s as simple as that. It’s about being a good team player, having a good attitude, supporting others whether they are “on your team” or not. Assuming the best out of folks, being encouraging, positive and constructive. Being benevolent. It is a good intention. It is kindness. Human kindness. Being human, being kind. It’s a life motto.”

Some of the women we played AGAINST this weekend, could learn a lot from the philosophy behind Team Orange. Anyone can be on Team Orange….just adopt the state of mind.

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Not everyone is “giddy with excitement” about the LFL

So tryouts for the Minnesota LFL team were this weekend. Potential LFL’ers (i.e. Valkyrie) were instructed: “DRESS ATTIRE IS CUTE GYM WEAR (SPORTS BRA & SHORTS)…PLEASE BRING A PHOTO TO LEAVE BEHIND.” Huh?

Some of our local MN news stations chose to cover it, despite the fact they rarely cover women’s sport.

To see the founder of the LFL (I think it is Mortaza but they never give him a title bar) talk about how “giddy with excitement” he is about the LFL in MSP, watch video of tryout footage and his interview click here.

In the video he says, “Heck we have fans who have never cared about football before coming to these football games…it is the ultimate night out.” He basically says on camera that it isn’t really about sport, not even about the football. What is an “ultimate night out” for many (not all) men? Strip clubs, alcohol, sex, and hanging out with other guys watching sports? While I am not even close to being giddy about the LFL coming to MSP, I have to hand it to them…they do seem to have hit upon a successful mix of marketing entertainment (i.e. sex, not sport) to their target market.

stay tuned….

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LFL Steals Name of the REAL Minnesota Valkyries, A Women’s Rugby Team

I did not need another reason to dislike the Lingerie Football League (LFL).. I got the announcement today, that tryouts for the new Minneapolis expansion team of the LFL will held Saturday, April 9. It wasn’t that tryouts will actually occur and a team will form, but that the LFL held a contest for fans to submit and then vote for a name for the Minneapolis team.

Evidently “Valkyrie” was submitted most frequently, received a “record 31,451 votes” and was subsequently chosen as the new name. The LFL already has a logo for the NEW Minnesota Valkyrie (notice in their tryout bulletin they stress “NEW”).

Why does this have me upset?

Minnesota ALREADY HAS a Valkyrie team of female athletes!! The Minnesota Valkyries Rugby Club has a long standing tradition of excellence as one of the elite organizations within USA Rugby, and has been around for as long as I can remember. The REAL Minnesota Valkyries have a mission statement and core values that include integrity, unity, respect, development and strength! The mission statement reads “The Minnesota Valkyries Rugby Club is an organization of former and present rugby players dedicated to the development of rugby, our team, and our community. We strive to maintain our position as one of the elite organizations within USA Rugby by creating a positive and enduring impact in all that we do. We bring honor to the sport of rugby by upholding our traditions, competing with pride, and understanding that every time we step onto the pitch we play for the legacy and future of The Minnesota Valkyries Rugby Club.

The First and Authentic Minnesota Valkyries

The LFL MISSION STATEMENT “The Lingerie Football League has become the Ultimate Fan-Driven Live Sports Phenomenon – Blending Action, Impact and Beauty.” No core values exist that I could find. Enough Said.

Can the LFL just hijack a team name? I don’t think so, if not legally, certainly by principle.

If you are reading this and are outraged, then please do something, anything….blog, call, tweet support (@valksrugby), tweet outrage (@MyLFL), “Like” the rugby team on Facebook, and pass the word.

If this is allowed, it is another way that real female athletes can be marginalized, co-opted and erased. What I find interesting is that I am guessing that the individuals who sumibtted and voted for the Valkyrie name are mostly 18-35 year old me who have NO CLUE that Minnesota has a tradition of high performance women’s rugby, let alone know what the team names are (yes, there is more than one women’s rugby team in MN)

Support the Valkyries Rubgy Club and help them make the LFL change their name.

p.s.-please don’t comment and tell me the names are different because the rugby team has an “s” on the end, and the LFL team name does not.

p.s.s.-I’d like to invite the Valkyries (the REAL athletes) to attend the LFL tryouts and help educate those in charge