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Gender bias in sports essay
A comparison and contrast essay on media coverage of female and male professional sports
Gender bias in covering sports media
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Why do female athletes receive less media coverage than male athletes? Male athletes dominate professional sport that airs on television. The media easily overlooks female athletes except during occasion like the Winter Olympics. The articles Media Coverage of Women’s Sports is Important (Lopiano, 2008) and Take Back the Sports Page? (Sommers, 2010) acknowledge factors that determine the amount of media coverage female athletes receive. [Lopiano and Sommers address this issue in regards to media coverage on female athletes differently. Lopiano focuses on the general message the media broadcasts and Sommers uses statistics to show the difference between female and male media. Lopiano and Sommers agree that the media considers female sports less valid. Both focus on different aspects such as problem and solutions and the different consequences of unequal media coverage]. The authors discover similar as well as different factors that contribute to the inequality media coverage of both female and male athletes obtain. Lopiano and Sommers agree that the amount of media coverage female athletes receive compared to male athletes indicates that female athletes are less valid. Lopiano and Sommers both point out that the media tends to highlight female athletes in action only during major events. Fortunately, for the male athletes, the tendency is different because no matter what time of the year it is, male events are always airing on the television. The media only decides to highlight events such as the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s basketball Final Four, Olympics, and World Cup soccer. Since the Olympic games and World Cup occurs every four years, the Final Four also known as the semi-final round are the rare eve... ... middle of paper ... ... 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. Works Cited Lopiano, D. A. (2008, February 12). Media coverage of women's sports is important. Sports Management Resources. Retrieved from http://www.sportsmanagementresources.com/library/media-coverage-womens-sports Sommers, C. H. (2010, August 12). Take back the sports page? The American Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.american.com/archive/2010/august/take-back-the-sports-page/
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
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.
To deepen our understanding of the cultural values embedded in sports and to explore current values and power structures regarding men and women, it is necessary to investigate the effect that the media may possibly have in influencing beliefs about gender-appropriate sport behavior. The media is a powerful factor which influences our beliefs, attitudes, and the values we have of ourselves and others, as well as the world surrounding us. It seems that the televised coverage of athletics continues to reinforce the ongoing division between males and females, and to reproduce traditional expectations regarding femininity and masculinity. One is able to witness the biased attitude directed toward the individual who attempts to participate in a sport that is non-traditional to his/her gender. Figure skating, for example, has been dominated for many years by women.
The paper takes a keen look at the entire perspective of media coverage and its corresponding effect on the participation of girls in sports activities. Media forums have always been instrumental in preparing a platform for the activities of the society. With regard to sports, it has often been perceived as a preserve of males. Therefore, supporting programs in television and other forms of media have always featured males. Hence, females have been left out.
-It has been previously discovered that through a series of discriminating and normalizing “techniques,” the American media covertly disparage and subordinate sportswomen. To what extent does the media participate in the discrimination of female athletes today, moreover, how does discrimination in sports media translate into and affect the social and athletic lives of female athletes.
“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.
The first perspective is that women are disadvantaged at any sport. Some people reiterate the difference of men and women in sports. This is influenced by strength and the natural power men hold, comparable to women. Rodriguez questions “Is this because female athletes don’t have what it takes to make it in the world of sports or could it be more of a social issue?” This perspective seems to be a social issue based on the notable skills women acquire vs. the apparent judgments of gender issues. The second perspective is the idea that women deserve and inherently earn their right of equal attention and equal pay. “Sometimes, the secret to equality is not positive discrimination, it 's equal terms. It 's the shrug of the shoulders that says "what 's the difference?" The moment worth aspiring for is not seeing people celebrate the world-class female cricketer who competes at comparatively low-level male professional cricket, but the day when people are aware that she does, and don 't find it notable at all” (Lawson). Lawson makes it a point to confirm the biased notions against women in sports and relay an alternative worth working toward and fighting for. Both outlooks can be biased but only one has factual evidence to back it up. The second perspective reviews an ongoing gender issue. This problem is welcome for change depending on society’s
The lines that separate the sexes in sport have been historically rooted in society's way of thinking. Though these lines have lately begun to fade, they are still embedded in the attitudes of the majority of the public. Women and men alike have been and still seated in their respective sports without much room or access to cross that gender line. These limitations take various forms, such as the availability of opportunities that are given to those that wish to enter certain sports to the media portrayals of athletes crossing these gender boundaries.
The only time we see women getting attention within the media is for their sexuality and not their athletic ability. In Val Hanson’s article “The Inequality of Sports” she uses the example of Tennis player Anna Kournikova to showcase this. Hanson states: “Throughout [Kournikova] career, [she] never won a singles title in tennis, but she made an astounding $10-15 million in endorsements through modelling and exposing herself to the camera, using her attractiveness to make money and gain attention. Modelling and photo shoots rather than actual sports are what female athletes seem to be defined by” (Hanson, 17). This notion relates back to the idea of gender stereotypes in sports as women through history were suppose to focus on the way the looked oppose to being the one who played outsides with their husbands an
However, women’s sport coverage suffers due to the positioning in newspapers, with their sporting stories often placed at the bottom of pages or at the inner, most inaccessible pages of the sports section. Women are often described in ways that stress weakness, passivity and insignificance, and in ways that deflect attention from their athleticism.
Sharma, Shailendra. "Media's Effect on Perceptions of Athletes' Gender and Race." The Sport Digest 2.9 (2002). Print.
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
“We have come so far, yet we still have so far to go.” This quote by Jenni Carlson—chair of the board of the Association for Women in Sports Media—captures the true essence of this essay. There seems to be a preconceived notion floating around in today’s society that female sports journalists have broken through the gender barrier in sports reporting. While there is no denying that progress has been made over the last two decades, the fact remains that female sports reporters still have a long road ahead when it comes to achieving the same respected and prominent roles that their male counterparts currently hold. This essay focuses on dispelling the idea that women have gained complete equality in sports journalism. This paper shows the
Gender inequality exists in athletic events from recreational to sports (Cunningham 2008). Equality between the genders has not been reached through all the sport spectrum that is being changed by the attribution of organizational policy, legislation, social pressures, and program development that recognizes women as stakeholders, managerial expertise, diversity, participation in the field. Nonetheless, a “sport is acknowledged as a powerful cultural institution linked to the construction and reinforcement of gender inequities” (Messner, 1988). Article by Anderson et al. (2016) stated if gender equality was accomplished by decreasing athletic opportunities from males or increasing female opportunities Researchers have contemplated if the gender gap, between the genders, will close over the years.
Few would argue that women’s sports struggles for media attention. In Australia, newspapers deliver a far greater reportage on men’s sports, and when female athletes are reported on, they are often treated in an ignorant way. News stories are usually written in an exaggerated style and focus more on personal matters rather than the actual sporting performance of the female athlete. In this era of equality and open-minded attitudes, how can this be? Tonight, Media Watch reports on this issue as we examine Australian media’s representation of all-rounder, Ellyse Perry. The media’s role in society is to deliver bias-free information to people. Thus, journalists should aim to be as impartial as possible, to deliver precise information. Nonetheless this is being overlooked by many journalists and on Media Watch, we can disclose that Perry has been represented unfairly in the media and undeniably some of the stories breach the Australian Journalistic Association Code of Ethics (AJACE).