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.

References

Sports, Media and Stereotypes - Women and Men in Sports and Media, (2006), Retriever March 7, 2012, from http://www.mujerydeporte.org/documentos/docs/sms_summary_report.pdf