The Importance Of Women's Sports

1971 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Women’s media coverage in sports

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.
Title IX was a federal civil rights legislation passed in 1972 that leveled the playing field for females seeking to participate in organized sports. The law forced educational institutions to allow girls and women equal access to school sports and facilities (Kane 99). Before Title IX society had questioned if it was okay for women to participate in organized sports in educational institutions. Title IX was a groundbreaking law to all women because it gave them hope that they can participate in sports without being questioned if it was culturally appropriate to participate in athletics. Mary Jo Kane, a researcher and advocate for women’s sports, states in defense of Title IX “In one generation we’ve gone from girls hoping that there is a team, to hoping they make the team” (103). Though Title IX did not completely level the playing for female athletes, but it did make a significant impact over a course of four decades. According to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) i...

... middle of paper ...

...ooky. "Gender in Televised Sports: News and Highlights Shows, 1989-2000." Sociology of Sport Journal 27.2 (2010): 139-59. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 16 July 2014.
O'Reilly, Jean. "The Women's Sports Film as the New Melodrama." Women and Sports in the United States: A Documentary Reader. Boston: Northeastern UP, 2007. 283-97. EBook Collection. Web. 14 July 2014.
Weber, Jonetta D., and Robert M. Carini. "Where are the Female Athletes in Sports Illustrated? A Content Analysis of Covers (2000-2011)." International Review for the Sociology of Sport 48.2 (2013): 196-203. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 9 July 2014.
Whiteside, Erin, and Marie Hardin. "Women (Not) Watching Women: Leisure Time, Television and Implications for Televised Coverage of Women's Sports." Communication, Culture & Critique 4.2 (2011): 122-43. Communication and Mass Media Complete. Web. 15 July 2014.

Show More
Related

  • The All-American Professional Girls Baseball League

    2183 Words  | 5 Pages

    Turn on ESPN, and there are many female sports reporters, and many reports on female athletes. Flip through Sports Illustrated, and female athletes are dotted throughout the magazine. Female athletes star in the commercials. Female athletes are on the cover of newspapers. Millions of books have been sold about hundreds of female athletes. However, this has not always been the case. The number of females playing sports nowadays compared to even twenty years ago is staggering, and the number just keeps rising. All the women athletes of today have people and events from past generations that inspired them, like Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the All-American Professional Girls Baseball League, Billie Jean King, and the 1999 United States Women’s World

    Read More

  • Gender Pay Gap for Women Athletes

    1565 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The past three decades have witnessed a steady growth in women's sports programs in America along with a remarkable increase in the number of women athletes (Daniel Frankl 2)” From an early age women were thought to be “Lady Like”; they are told not to get all sweaty and dirty. Over 200 years since Maud Watson stepped on the tennis courts of Wimbledon (Sports Media Digest 3); women now compete in all types and levels of sports from softball to National racing. Soccer fans saw Mia Hamm become the face of women’s soccer around the world, Venus and Serena Williams are two of the most popular figures in tennis, and Indy car racing had their first woman racer, Danika Patrick. With all the fame generated by these women in their respective sports, they still don’t receive the same compensation as the men in their respective sports fields.

    Read More

  • Comparison Essay: Female Versus Male Athletes

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... athletes feel more secure than their female counterparts. Lopiano and Sommers create realistic, reliable and clear material that uncovers how female athletes struggle to gain media coverage. The article by Lopiano (2008) is broad and simple, while the article by Sommers (2010) is specific and precise. Overall, Lopiano and Sommers prove to be effective, straightforward, and unique sources that challenge the inconsistency of media coverage between female athletes and male athletes.

    Read More

  • Title IX

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Female Athletes Scrutinized for their Appearance

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ennis, basketball, soccer, and martial arts—have come from the days of cheerleading and synchronized swimming when she was growing up in the ’70s.” Disparities in media coverage and over-sexualized female athletes on magazine covers is something that needs to come to an end because of its effects on both male and female viewers, young and old, athletes and non-athletes. Both female and male athletics influence young people and shape their personality and morals as they mature. Retired WNBA player, Lisa Leslie credits her participation in basketball with shaping her character, as well as her career. “Sports can also help teenagers during an awkward time in their development.” (“Women’s Athletics: A Battle For Respect”). The solution is to come together as a society and identify how to balance the respect for female and male athletes in the media.

    Read More

  • Women and Sports

    3158 Words  | 7 Pages

    It has taken many years for women to gain a semblance of equality in sports. Throughout history, women have been both excluded from playing sports and discriminated against in sports. Men’s sports have always dominated the college athletic field, but women were finally given a fighting chance after Title IX was passed. Title IX, among other things, requires scholarships to be equally proportioned between men and women’s sports. Although this was a huge gain for women, gender inequality still exists in sports today. An example of this persisting inequality can be seen when looking at men’s baseball and women’s softball. In college, baseball and softball are both major NCAA sports. It is widely accepted throughout today’s society that baseball is a man’s sport, and softball is a woman’s sport. Very few people question why the two sexes are separated into two different sports, or wonder why women play softball instead of baseball. Fewer people know that women have been essentially excluded from playing baseball for a long time. This paper will focus on why softball has not changed the way women’s basketball has, why women continue to play softball, the possibilities and dynamics of women playing baseball with and without men, and the most discriminating aspect of women being banned from playing professional baseball.

    Read More

  • Discrepancy in Media Coverage

    2534 Words  | 6 Pages

    The discrepancies in media coverage in coverage of female and children athletics have large gaps, but are gaining momentum in sharing equality. Major athletic leagues such as the NBA and FIFA World Cup have wide gaps in marketing and ratings for their male and female athletes. Children are future athletes and superstars, but as funding and coverage in athletics caters to the males, women are breaking the barriers to being in the spotlight of sport. Both genders contribute equally to athletics, and challenge the each other to accept new ideas and change. The sports world that has a single gender dominating the media is unjust.

    Read More

  • Media, Sexualisation and Female Tennis.

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    Within todays sporting community, certain aspects of sport and its practices promote and construct ideas that sport in general is a male dominated. Sports media often provides an unequal representation of genders. Women athletes are regularly perceived as mediocre in comparison to their male equivalents (Lenskyj, 1998). Achievement in sport is generally established through displays of strength, speed and endurance, men usually set the standards in these areas, consequently woman rarely reach the level set by top male athletes. Due to this, the media significantly shows bias towards male sports while we are ill-informed about the achievements in the female sporting community. On the occasion that a female athlete does make some form of an appearance in the media, images and videos used will usually portray the female in sexually objectified ways (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). This depiction of female athletes can cause males to take focus solely on the sexual assets of the athlete in preference to to their sporting abilities (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). Sexualisation of sportswoman in the media is a prevalent issue in today’s society, it can cause physical, social and mental problems among women of all ages (Lenskyj, 1998).

    Read More

  • Why Do Men Get More Recognition Than Women In Sports

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Getting women into the stands is key to winning television coverage and the big salaries that come with that exposure,” said Michael Graber, a sports cinematographer and father of two girls. Mens sports seem to be more exciting with higher production and higher quality coverage. “90% of sport editors are white males,” due to the low involvement of women in media, there seems to be a lower quality of coverage in females sports. The difference in coverage, the Final Four teams for the men's NCAA basketball tournament got front page attention on New York Times. Would the women? The women only received a story without a photo deep in the sports section.

    Read More

  • A Sociological Perspective of Women in Sport in Australia

    2304 Words  | 5 Pages

    The report will refer to the sociological perspective of women’s sport in Australia which leads to the changes within women’s sport, Athletics at Brisbane Girls Grammar, women’s sport in the media and then an evaluation and recommendation on the topic ‘Women in Sport’.

    Read More

  • History of Women in Sports

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    Krane, V. (2001). We can be athletic and feminine, but do we want to? Challenging hegemonic femininity in women's sport. Quest, 53,115-133.

    Read More

  • Gender Discrimination in Sports Media

    1867 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On The Role Of Women In Sports

    994 Words  | 2 Pages

    Media plays a large role in affecting peoples thinking, opinions, ideas, etc. In essence media can shape our thinking into negative views and perspectives that are typically not true. Sometimes the media plays as a puppet master to society. Specifically, the inequity of the gender roles within sports causes for a stir in commotion that calls for some attention. In doing so the inadequate misuse of media towards women in sports causes low exposure, amongst many other things. On the other hand their male counterparts are on the other end of the success spectrum. Because of this noticeable difference, it is vital that action is taken place to level out equality within sports. Due to the power of media, it is believed that a change in media coverage

    Read More

  • Gender Equality In Sports

    329 Words  | 1 Pages

    Gender in sports has been a controversial issue ever since sports were invented. In the early years, sports were played only by the men, and the women were to sit on the sidelines and watch. This was another area of life exemplifying the sexism of people in which women were not allowed to do something that men could. However, over the last century in particular, things have begun to change.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Sports Essay

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whether its baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or tennis, sports is seen all over the world as a representation of one’s pride for their city, country, and even continent. Sports is something that is valued world-wide which has the ability to bring communities together and create different meanings, beliefs and practices between individuals. Although many people may perceive sports to have a significant meaning within our lives, it can also have the ability to separate people through gender inequalities which can also be represented negatively throughout the media. This essay will attempt to prove how gender is constructed in the sports culture while focusing on female athletes and their acceptance in today’s society.

    Read More

More about The Importance Of Women's Sports

Open Document