How has the Media Portrayed Female Athletes

Saturday, April 21, 2012

5th Post: Reflection

Why isn’t this problem resolved?

Modelling theory is based on social learning theory. It explains that exposure to models of behaviour in mass media provides individual with a learning form of action which could become part of the person’s manner of coping with recurring problem. In this case, young female sports athletes out there would see their models being portrayed as a sex object rather than an athlete and therefore modelling after their models, in future they would not mind being portrayed in such a manner. They might feel that it is a norm for female athletes to be shown as hot, sexy and revealing compared to tough, skilled and confident. The problem with this is that, in the end no one would voice out and say this is unfair to women athletes. Everyone would go along with the media portrayal because they see their role models doing the same and they might have the mentality that, ‘if my role model doesn’t mind being portrayed in this way then I should not mind it too.’ This would only happen if their role model has a huge influence on them.

Another theory that might explains this problem for not being solved is the agenda setting theory, where the media uses its powerful influence to tell the audience of what issues are important. Public perceived certain issues as more important than the other issues because media concentrate only on a few subjects and issues. If the portrayal of female athletes were ever a problem to the media then they would definitely voice it out, but sadly, the mass media is fine with this kind of portrayal and therefore people would not even notice what the reality is. If mass media just brings up this topic once, then we would be able to see the difference in the way people react to this, especially female athletes. They would start realising it and stop doing such photo shoots (being shown as hot with revealing clothing or to the extent of nudity) and female athletes would get the respect that they deserve. If one decides to take an action and change this perspective of female athletes then the rest might follow. It is either we leave it as it is or someone takes the responsibility to change it.

The media shows us only one version of the reality, not reality itself, through the media representation theory. If media changes this theory and shows the real reality of female athletes then the portrayal of female athletes would not be a problem anymore. It is due to this one version of reality that a lot of people tend to blindly believe everything the media says and shows and therefore not wanting to voice out any opinions if they had.

I personally believe that if media changes the media representation theory; one version of reality to showing the reality itself, then not only will the portrayal of female athletes be solved, but other issues too. Media has a huge influence on us but we should not agree to whatever the media is doing. We should be able to differentiate the good and the bad.

4th post

Why are female athletes portrayed as sex objects and what has it lead to? This portrayal of female athlete as sex objects has proven to increase the marketability of women in sports but takes away the performances of the women as elite athletes.

Swimmer Jenny Thompson and Volleyball player Gabrielle Reece are two women athletes who have posed nude for playboy. Many young girls who look up to these athletes and admire them can get the wrong idea of what it is to be an accomplished female elite athlete. Young girls might think that the only women who can succeed as an athlete is those women who portray the ideal feminine athleticism or represent society traditional notions of women role in sport as passive, non-competitive, weak and emotional (Griffen 1998).

Image of Gabrielle Reece in playboy.

Daniels & Wartena (2011) have found that adolescent boys are responding to these media campaigns by objectifying female athletes, and in turn resulted in the involvement from adolescent girls in school sport dropping significantly. Much research has been demonstrated on younger adolescent girls who view elite athletic women as role models. However, they also are aware of the objectification present in a sexualized way in which the athletes are portrayed (Daniels, 2009). Because they are pushed between the pressures of having an athletic body, but are also made to be self-conscious when playing sport, this leads to girls to monitor their own bodies by developing disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia (Daniels, 2009). Strategies need to put into place to restrict and monitor the advertisements being produced in the media to reduce this and add value.

References:

http://beautiful-women-athlete.blogspot.com/2008/11/gabrielle-reece-in-playboy.html

http://healthculturesociety.wikispaces.com/What+are+you+woman%3B+a+pornstar+or+an+athlete%3F

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jwendlin/5sexualization_of_women_athletes.htm

http://womeninsports.weebly.com/history.html

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Comparison of male and female athletes

Pictures of Hottest Female Athletes

for more pictures like here

Pictures of Hottest Male Athletes

for more pictures click here

From the images and videos above, we can see the huge difference of the portrayal of male and female athletes. Why are female athletes not shown as a strong, aggressive, skilled and confident athlete?

Being a sports woman myself, I believe that sports women should be given the same amount of airtime, respect and recognition as male athletes. Female athletes are ignored for the excellent work they do in sports. They deserve the same respect for their athletic abilities as it is for male athletes and should be portrayed as skilled athletes.

Media plays a huge role in our lives; it shapes our thinking, attitudes, values and beliefs. This portrayal of female athletes might affect the younger generation in various ways:
1) Aspiring young female who are interested in sports would not mind being shown as a sexual object in future because they see their idols doing the same.
2) By portraying sportswomen either as sex objects or as "pretty ladies", the message is that sportswomen are not strong, powerful and highly skilled individuals and this might discourage aspiring young females to pursue their dream in sports.

Therefore, it is important to change this perspective of female athletes so that we can see more female athletes being successful in the sports industry too.

References

Hottest Male Athletes, (2008) Youtube. Retrieved March 11, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmp_1QGEJDU

Hottest Female Athletes from Around the World, (2011) Youtube. Retrieved March 11, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=H0bE8FvIyC4

How are Female Athletes Portrayed

The images above show the cover page of ESPN magazine which is world-renowned. We can see from those two images that the male is portrayed as sports athlete in his sports attire with an aggressive attitude, whereas the female athlete, Serena Williams, a famous tennis player, is portrayed as a bare-skinned woman with seductive posture rather than wearing her tennis attire in an athletic motion.

The issue is not only about how much of recognition is shown to the female athletes through the media but also how they are portrayed in media; as sex objects.

As one can see, the women on the sports magazine cover is enormously different compared to the male. There are seductive stares, raunchy subtitles and revealing clothing, whereas the male athlete is wearing his sport attire and showing an athletic motion of breaking through a wall.

There was an article written about Candace Parker (the woman athlete in the middle that is pregnant). The first sentence of the story states, “Candace Parker is beautiful. Breathtaking, really, with flawless skin, endless legs and a C cup she is proud of but never flaunts”. As a reader, I would see Candace Parker’s body, not her athletic ability. ESPN The Magazine is a sports magazine that is showcasing these women as sexual fantasies. For more info, click here

In conclusion, men are showcased as athletic specimens showing off their tenacity and skills in the media unlike women who show off their bodies and sex appeal.

Also, the usage of words used to describe male and female athletes are immensely different too. Men are described as "big," "strong," "brilliant,” and "aggressive," women are more often referred as "weary," "fatigued," "frustrated," "panicked," and "vulnerable". Also, female athletes were known as "girls" or "young ladies", whereas for male athletes they were known as "men" instead of "boys" or "young men". Women are normally called by their first name instead of their surname. In contrast, men are referred by their surnames. For info, click here.

All these shows that women athletes are not meant for sports and are seen as ‘weak links’ and the male athletes are given more respect than women athletes.

(All the images are from google.)

Amount of Airtime Female Sports has been given.

What comes to your mind when we say the word sports? Of the many people I have asked, most of them have replies such as ‘soccer’, ‘rugby’ and ‘basketball’. Can you see the similarity between those sports? Those few are the most broadcasted sports in the world. Also, we cannot fail to realize that they are male-dominated. I will now discuss the fact that female sport has been given less airtime than male sports.

Sports, media and stereotypes (SMS) – women and men in sports and media, was a project title given by 5 countries; Austria, Lithuania, Norway, Italy and Iceland. The purpose of this project was to contribute to the knowledge of representation of women and men in the sports media. One of the shocking founding’s was that female athletes were given tremendously less airtime compared to male athletes.

As we can see from the above diagram that women are given the least broadcast in sports.

Above are some statistics that shows the number of stories that are broadcasted for female athletes compared to male athletes in different sports. From these statistics we can conclude that female athletes are given much lesser airtime compared to male athletes.

It seems that in this globalised world the sports media has fallen behind. According to www.dictionary.com, sports is defined as ‘an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a 'competitive nature’. The key phrases here are ‘physical prowess’ and ‘competitive nature’. The only reason why the media has failed to broadcast more female sports is simply because they believe that women do not have the physical prowess and many other attributes as compared to men. Why else would it happen? The media has an undeniable ability to alter the thought of masses of people, almost like hypnotising them. Despite that, they still fail to even attempt changing the mindset of the public of women in sports.

“Margaret Carlisle Duncan and Michael Messner studied sports coverage on three network affiliates in Los Angeles. They report that only 9% of airtime was devoted to women’s sports, in contrast to the 88% devoted to male athletes. Female athletes fared even worse on ESPN’s national sports show Sports Centre, where they occupied just over 2% of airtime.” Please click here for more info.

The statistics I have shown so far clearly prove that female sports have been given much less airtime than male sports. Even so, how has that airtime been portrayed? In my other two blog posts I will be talking about how the media has portrayed female sports athletes and its comparison to male athletes.