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Media coverage of female athletes essay
Sexism in sports
Media coverage of female athletes essay
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The Media’s Image of Women If social views impact how the media displays women sports and female athletes, then what exactly is being represented in the media? The media displays the social views of sexism through the images and commercials they produce. Associate professor of American studies, Dr. Cheryl Cooky noted in her research on the media coverage of women’s sports, that you are “more likely to see women in bikinis versus on the field” (Cooky, 2016). Dr. Cynthia Frisby, an associate professor of strategic communications at the University of Missouri, research on the media coverage of the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics supports Dr. Cooky’s statement, noting the “number of microaggressions” (of which includes sexual objectivation) “against
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.
During the last decade, women have experienced a significant advance in matters of equal rights. Their roles in society have diversified; challenging chauvinistic ideologies and perspectives. However, there are specific areas where male seem to have the predominant role and women are stuck. According to Michael Desbordes in the article “Endorsement by ‘Looks’”, American society has experienced positive changes regarding gender equality in sports, but women still face issues when it comes to sponsorships, because there are gender biases that negatively affect their image as professional athletes. Moreover, the factors that strongly influence sponsors to prefer men athletes over women have direct relationship with American society’s attitudes.
In 1970 only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports, today that ratio is 1 in 3. Sports are a very important part of the American society. Within sports heroes are made, goals are set and dreams are lived. The media makes all these things possible by creating publicity for the rising stars of today. Within society today, the media has downplayed the role of the woman within sports. When the American people think of women in sports, they think of ice skating, field hockey and diving. People don’t recognize that women have the potential to play any sport that a Man can play, with equal skill, if not better.
Today I’m going to talk about the Media and a women’s body image, and how the media could be harming you and your children. Have you ever read a magazine or watched TV and say wow I wish I look like her? The media sets out tons of images and videos of a way an average woman should look like when in reality what the media is showing is unrealistic goal to achieve. Whit the media showing off only one body image or what they would say “perfect,” body image they can cause serious problems mentally and physically in a women’s mind and body.
In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and medical experts have gone to great lengths about the growing problem of body image. This literature review examines the sociological impact of media-induced body image on women, specifically women under the age of 18. Although most individuals make light of the ideal body image most will agree that today’s pop-culture is inherently hurting the youth by representing false images and unhealthy habits. The paper compares the media-induced ideal body image with significant role models of today’s youth and the surrounding historical icons of pop-culture while exploring various sociological perspectives surrounding this issue.
Have you ever watched a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) or even attended a women’s sporting event? What if you were an achieved athlete and you never received the media attention you deserve? Today’s sports media is clearly dominated by male athletes, consequently female athletes get minimal recognition in the media for their athletic achievements. The media plays a significant role in influencing our ideas, values, and attitudes toward specific subjects. In today’s media, female athletes are continually sexualized and objectified, whereas male athletes are shown to have strength and power; to correct this problem society can take many steps including empowering young girls to play sports and encouraging media to cover women’s sports more often.
Most people watch some form of sports, whether it be the Olympics or the highlights on ESPN. The NBA and NHL playoffs are underway and theyit seems to be the only news on ESPN. There is almost no coverage of the WNBA playoffs or any female athletics. Tennis isone of the only big sports on ESPN for women. While during the Olympics the coverage seems to be non-stop and close to equal. Women’s participation in sport is at an all-time high and has almost become equal with men’s, however,. sSports media does notfails to show this equality and skews the way we look at these athletes. Through the disciplines of sociology and gender studies, it can be seen that despite the many gains of women in sports since the enactment of Title IX, “traditional” notions of masculinity and femininity still dominate media coverage of males and females in sports, which is observed in Olympic programming and sports news broadcasts.
National and local television networks stations usually broadcasts many hours of sport coverage each year to millions of viewer worldwide. However, it usually fails to cover women that have been engaged in the sports activities and this reflects the way women are treated in the society. Messner, (1992) asserts that women and girls are the majority of the population and most of them tend to love sports. Some scholars believe that because of the marginalization of women in the sport department the coverage of their sports is limited (Michael, Warren and Paul, 2003).
The sexualizing of women athletes is a way to keep power in the hands of men. This is because by sexualizing and showing women as objects of desire they are showing that their worth is that of an object instead of a human being. A woman can be an extremely talented athlete but if she isn’t pretty then she won’t make nearly the same amount of money as a man. Dominant ideology is the idea that a “set of cultural beliefs and practices… help to maintain powerful social, economic, and political interests (Schaefer, 54).
Throughout history when we think about women in society we think of small and thin. Today's current portrayal of women stereotypes the feminine sex as being everything that most women are not. Because of this depiction, the mentality of women today is to be thin and to look a certain way. There are many challenges with women wanting to be a certain size. They go through physical and mental problems to try and overcome what they are not happy with. In the world, there are people who tell us what size we should be and if we are not that size we are not even worth anything. Because of the way women have been stereotyped in the media, there has been some controversial issues raised regarding the way the world views women. These issues are important because they affect the way we see ourselvescontributing in a negative way to how positive or negative our self image is.
Men are seen with the overlying privilege for any sport that they play and are portrayed as “one up” from a woman in sports based on listeners and viewers. This bias puts many female athletes feel discouraged because they feel as if they do not have the same privilege in the sport they dedicated themselves to than men. In terms of media portraying the female athlete entitlement to their sport, they do everything, but speak to the athletic ability of female athletes. Diane Ponterotto a psychologist at the University of Rome states, “The sports media often convey the idea that female attractiveness and sexual desirability are more important than athletic ability. Commentaries highlight the female athletes’ sexual attributes, explicitly mentioning body shape and parts (legs, breasts, mouth), often with evocations of bedroom activities”(Ponterotto).
It wasn 't too long ago that woman began showing up on television, movies, and the media in general. For many years men were portrayed in the media more often than women because they “had a tough time gaining access to production, either as trained professionals or citizens” (Byerly & Ross 2). Men dominated both television and jobs within the media. They could be actors, directors, producers or writers. Men had many opportunities that women did not. They couldn’t get as many jobs as men but along the way they slowly began to gain more access into the media. They had the chance to become journalists, actresses and even directors. Slowly more jobs became available and today
(Women's Sports Foundation) Even though there have been advancements in female athlete recognition in the media, the display of women athletes in the media, compared to male athletes or male(s) sports, is subjected to both objectification and invisibility. (Trolan, 219). This is something that will not change until male and female athletes are considered to be equal. Unfortunately, women athletes today are still considered to be lesser to male athletes.
Many believe that gender disproportionality is not prevalent in today’s society and therefore considered a thing of the past. However, in the sports media industry it can be argued that gender disproportionally still exists and is a universal problem. The issue of unbalanced of genders in media coverage, athlete profiles and sports advertising will be discussed within the framework of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and other research. This discussion has significances within the sport and recreation sector as continuing efforts are made to further the cause of gender equality. This essay will argue that gender inequity in the media is still prevalent today.
Women have been criticized when it comes to sports participation, sports is viewed as a dominant role for males and females should play a supportive role rather than participating in the actual field activities, this is just one of many reasons why inequality still exists. Sandys (2007) suggests that gender inequality in sports stems from the stereotypes that exist in society today. For example, stereotypes of women’s physical abilities and social roles are still very prominent today, and so women naturally feel inferior in the sports domain. If we stray away from the right track towards gender equality in sports and increased feelings of empowerment will only be reached if these stereotypes are eliminated (Sandys, 2007). Therefore, it could be argued that increased media coverage of women’s sports could be a possible solution, because it would serve to ed...