Sexism in Sports Media Coverage

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Female Athletes in the Sports Journalism: Sexism and gender-role stereotyping

Sexism and gender-role stereotyping against women is still pervasive in our society and this is no exception to women athletes in sport sector. Despite increased women’s involvement in various sports sections, women are still less likely to be represented as a leader in many fields (Mudrick et al., 2017). Virtually in every aspect, women remain underrepresented in mass media including newspapers, sports broadcasting, and sports talk radio (Antunovic, 2018). In media, female athletes are less represented than male athletes and are often stereotyped. When describes female athletes, media tend to emphasize the sportswomen’s physical characteristics rather than their actual performances or activities (Vujović, Mitrović, & Obradović, 2017).

Media Representations of Female Athletes: Five Media Rules.

In sports media, female athletes are often being recognized and evaluated by their physical characteristics such as a sexual object, or in a traditional gender role rather than their abilities, performances or skills as an athlete. Five media rules were recognized for representing female athletes in a subordinate and culturally specific gender role (Vujović, Mitrović, & Obradović, 2017). Five rules including: (1) gender emphasis: emphasizing a sports event as a female. (2) compulsory heterosexuality: presenting sportswomen as a sexual objects, someone’s girlfriend, wife or mother.  (3) emphasis on femininity: sportswomen portrayed as beautiful and dependent figure and (4) a female athlete is infantized: labeled as young girl or young lady or just with her first name and (5) personal life or appearance of the female athletes which is not relevant to the sport (Vujović, Mitrović, & Obradović, 2017). Those recognized five media rules indicates that female athletes are heavily evaluated by their physical characteristics or in a traditional gender-role rather than their performances or activities.

Media Coverage: Exposure of women’s sports in media.

In sports media, men’s activities dominate media coverage globally (United Nations, 2007). In United States, media coverage of male to female athletes was 95 to 1 in television and 20 to 1 in print media (United Nations, 2007). Moreover, in 2014 in United States, only 3.2% of women’s sports were covered in network television and only 2% of female athletes were covered in Sports Centre (Bianco, 2014). Similarly, in Australia, only 2% of women’s sports were covered in television, 6.8% were covered in sports magazines and only 1.4% were announced in radio (United Nations, 2007). Furthermore, By sport, 2014. sports coverage on ‘SportsCenter’ and local network affiliates indicated that, Men’s basketball are most covered in media as 35.5% and followed by, Men’s football as 20.1%, Men’s baseball as 18.9%, Men’s other as 6%, Men’s golf as 5.3%, Men’s hockey as 5.5%, Men’s soccer as 4.1%, then Women’s basketball as 2.3% and Women’s other as 0.5% (Bianco, 2014). This suggests that sports media covers mostly men and only small portions of women athletes are portrayed in media. Despite increased in women’s participation and held more positions in sports sector, female athletes are still less covered than male athletes by sports media.

Media Coverage: Sexist Language used towards women athletes

Gender-role stereotyping and sexist language are often used in sports media. Sports media describes males as athletes, and female as women first then athletes second (Smith, 2019). Even when female athletes are dominant on the playing field, media still describes the players’ status as women rather than athletes (Smith, 2019). Moreover, micro-aggression towards women such as, representing women as sexual objects and using sexist language towards women has increased between 2012 to 2016 (Smith, 2019). A recent study by Cambridge University Press, analyzed massive database including news articles, posts on social media and found that sexist language were used towards women athletes focused on appearance, clothes and personal lives rather than their performances (Bates, 2016). For example, The Sun website, describes Australian 100m hurdler Michelle Jenneke as “abs-olutely fabulous” and describes her uniform with the caption “Michelle Jenneke certainly isn’t shy about showing off her body” (Bates, 2016). Moreover, The Cambridge study also suggested that women are often referred as “girls” in sport media even though they should be referred as ‘women’. This indicates that women are often infantilized and emphasized their youthfulness by media. It is because the term youth is closely tied to women’s attractiveness. Again, female athlete’s physical attractiveness’s are consistently and widely reinforced by Media.

Sexism in sports Media Coverage: Conclusion

Sexism and Underrepresentation are still existing towards female athletes. A form of discrimination, sexism specifically, can significantly weakens the women’s motivations to participate and further deteriorates their performances. Therefore, media should be aware of the importance of gender equality and try to avoid any sexism towards women. Moreover, social and legal structural changes must be made to create healthy media environment to portray female athletes appropriately as athletes regardless of one’s sex.

References

  1. Bates, C. (2016, August, 11). Is some Olympic commentary sexist?. BBC News Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37037050
  2. Bianco, M. (2015). There is less women's sports coverage on TV news today than there was in 1989. Quartz. Retrieved from https://qz.com/428680/there-is-less-womens-sports-coverage-on-tv-today-than-there-was-in-1989/
  3. Mudrick, M., Burton, L., & Lin, C. (2017). Pervasively offside: An examination of  sexism, stereotypes, and sportscaster credibility. Journal of Communication & Sport, 5(6), 670-684. doi:10.1177/2167479516670642 journals.sagepub.com/home/com
  4. Smith, L. R. (2019). A test of the relationship between sexist television commentary and enjoyment of women’s sports: impacts on emotions, attitudes, and viewing intentions. Communication Research Report ,36(5), 449-460. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/full/10.1080/08824096.2019.1683531
  5. United Nations. (2007). Women 2000 and beyond: Women, Gender Equality and Sport. Retrieved from https://www.sportanddev.org/sites/default/files/downloads/54__women_2000_and_beyond.pdf
  6. Vujović,M., Mitrović, M., & Obradović, N. (2017). Women and Olympic Games: Media Coverage". Teme - Časopis za Društvene Nauke, 41(4),1113-1137. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=64441
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