The portrayal of women in sports
Nowadays, the image of women in sports is currently slowly improving but there are still some
major issues with the global image of women in the media. They are still viewed as being
less dominate comparing to males that are still the dominate genre in the sports media.
Males are the one that get more attention in the news coverage more than women.
everybody are constantly bombarded with heroic pictures of males athletes than heroic
images of women athletes. When the media decided to focus on females athletes, they
Will mostly be interested by their appearance and their clothing. For example , the case
of the tennis player Maria Sharapova , who receives more attention about her looks and
her clothing rather about her ability to play tennis. According to Schonberger (2012) ,
Forbes a published an article in the year 2010 on the highest paid women athletes. Once \
again Maria Sharapova wins the title of one of the most pain women athletes . Women’s
tennis is arguably the most commercially popular and successful among all women’s
sports because it is an individual sport that draws a greater percentage of male followers
than other women sports. According to a research , media has the power to shape the
public values and beliefs. (Kane 1988; Dyer 1993). Media can influence the public
views and that the media emphasizes a certain aspect of the female sport and then ignoring
other aspects of the sports including women. ( Higgs, Weiller, Martin 2003). The sports
industry plays a significant role in the negative portray of female athletes. It can do it
trough the use of sexist language , objectification. In the case of the Olympic Games , the
sportswomen throws more spotlight on the women , they get more coverage during
the games but the male is still the dominate one like it was mentioned earlier. The sport
industry has been operating in other to define masculinity and femininity but it’s the
male excellence that has been encouraged but the femininity is often viewed as
suspicions. There are also many barriers as for example time pressure , body images
concerns , disapproval among certain cultures , family responsibilities and also financial
cost as well.
According to yougov.com, the reasons why women’s sports receive less attention than men
Is because men’s sports have greater tradition. Men’s sports represent 25% of the media and
women’s covers only 24 % of the coverage. Another reason is sexism, 13 % is women’s sexism
comparing to the male that is only 10%. Media think that the quality of play is better with males is 24 %
but for women only 5% in June 2015.
In 1972 , the US congress passed an act titled IX of the Omnibus Education act mandated
equal federal funding opportunities towards female and male students in higher education
which increased and encouraged girls and women to participate in sports. It also made women
more involved and more competitive in sports. As mentioned the issues are still present even
today as female athletes faces certain obstacles. The media is deciding the women and men by
believing that men are destined to only be involved in men’s sports like basketball , football and
so on and that women should only be practicing women types of sports like ice skating or
gymnastics. Female athletes gets acceptance if they focus only on feminine sports and in case
they are trying to participate in a men sports , they would be questioned of their own sexuality.
To conclude , women in sport are still remain until today as inequal to men but there is
huge progress in that field but some of the issues still are significantly present. Women’s
sport is still less covered in the media than the male’s sport which is still considered to
be dominated in the sports. What can we do in order to change this issue ?
References :
L. (2018, March 02). Media’s Negative Portrayal of Women in Sport. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://genderleisureandsport.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/medias-negative-portrayal-of-women-in-sport/
S., & A. W. (2018, May 25). Exposure to Women’s Sports: Changing Attitudes Toward Female Athletes. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://thesportjournal.org/article/exposure-to-womens-sports-changing-attitudes-toward-female-athletes/
R. (2017, Autumn). Women in Sport, Gender in Society. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/news_and_media/blog/women_in_sport_gender_in_society
P. (2016, August 30). The Influence of Media Portrayal of Women on Female Participation in Sport & Exercise. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://believeperform.com/performance/the-influence-of-media-portrayal-of-women-on-female-participation-in-sport-exercise/.
P. M. (2015, June 17). Media deserves the blame for lack of attention on women’s sports. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://today.yougov.com/topics/sports/articles-reports/2015/06/17/media-deserve-blame
Anja's blog 
But, is it bad, that women are less popular in sports media? Or are you talking about feminism? Probably, because, the physical effort is more for men than for women if we will look throw the biological perspective. Sport is making men, as well as women, look stronger. Naturally, men should be or at least look stronger than women and, according to this, it would be logical, that men do not like women who look stronger than they. What do you think, if media started to post muscular bodies of women, it would be popular or men would be just a jealous for women’s muscles?
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have to agree with what are you saying. It has some truths to that but nowadays we are living in a world that is constantly progressing and where women and men should be equal in every field including the sports. I think that if the media starts to post muscular bodies of women it wouldn’t be that popular because society has its “perfect ” bodies for women but in a society, there shouldn’t be any discrimination
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I agree with you that female abilities in sport are probably underestimated, but I think this is logical that people pay more attention to how women look, rather than their abilities. First, sport women are usually attractive, so if a team of young women are playing tennis, volleyball or whatever, it is clear that people, especially men will pay more attention on women, rather than on a game. I would say this is part of nature. There are also female sports such as rhythmic gymnastics, pole dance, figure skating and so on, when women are portrayed the way that women should be portrayed. It depends on kind of sport:)
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