Gender In Televised Sports: The Socialization Of Women In Advertising

In sports there is huge gender inequality in the media with women athletes often only receiving attention for having good looks or the best body, rather than their athletic abilities. Men, however, don’t receive this attention and people only focus on their athletic prowess. This report will review and analyse two examples of how the media portrays different genders in accordance with the following question: “How does the media portray men and women in sport?

Gender representation and in particular misrepresentation is a key issue within sport and media today as female coverage of sport is overlooked in all forms of mainstream media. This issue is what we, as a group of 3, had to tackle and present to our academic peers in a student led seminar session. The issue derives from the main theme of sport and media and their relationship but could also be said to have direct links to other themes such as sport and (in) equality. Gender representation comes under both media and equality in terms of broader topics because it is the concern of the media to help broadcast more female sport and raise awareness of the inequality which exists to the wide audience it has to target, this doesn’t happen enough currently. Research by Cooky et al. (2013) suggests that female sports coverage on ESPN sport takes up around 3% of coverage time which is a shocking disparity compared to men’s coverage on the same channel. It also found that 0 news stories on WNBA were published out of season across multiple news channels while the NBA had 72 stories. Studying this topic is particularly important to understand historically and culturally why this problem exists as well as to look at the negative ideologies which exist within sports media around the subject of gender representation.

Before I conducted this media analysis about women in sports and sport broadcasting, I hypothesized the obvious - that more male sports would be in the media, and that there would be more male sports broadcasters as well. Through my observations I did find that the sports arena and sports broadcasting sphere are male dominated. However, I also found that although there are not many stories about women, there has been a steady progression and magazines like Sports Illustrated are becoming bold enough to highlight women athletes in a magazine that is targeted towards a male audience. Although women still have a long way to go, they are making some headway into the male-dominated sports arena.

The purpose of this research is to bring attention to the lack of women’s sports coverage in the media and show how male sports have taken priority over women’s sports.

Gender stereotyping in sports media is something we see everyday in magazines and on TV. Since sports were invented, males have dominated one of Canada’s largest pastimes. Reasons for this being physicality and strength, but as time progressed women began to become more involved in the culture of sport. Today there is almost an equal amount of women participating in sports as man, yet women are still not being represented with the same approach as men. About a month ago I found a video online that followed a sports reporter who was trying to make a point about gender stereotyping within sports media. He would interview professional male athletes but rather than ask them the typical interview questions we see in male sports, such as “has your workout routine changed since…” but rather asked them questions that are typically related to female athlete interviews such as one that was asked to swimmer Michael Phelps “Shaving your body hair gives you an edge in the pool, but how about your love life”, or “any comments about reports about your girlish figure”. At the end of the video they show real women athletes being asked these types of questions in real interviews. The men’s reactions of embarrassment to disgust vs. the women’s reactions of showing no surprise to being asked these derogatory questions, says it all. It is no surprise that the sexualization of female athletes is something all too common in sports media. We’ll be looking into the idea of sexualisation in

When it comes to women in the media they do not get represented very well and they tend to be poorly portrayed as well. Men are the largest consumers, players, and of sports. So media focus more on male sports and athletes. This may be the reason women are advised not to be engaged in sports and how their gender is presented in the media. Some people think that if more women participate in sports, the media would be fairer. In today’s society, the media focuses more on women’s looks

Gender classification is a predominant topic within today’s sports and is most broadly understood through the portrayals of sports media. Through overt and covert ways, sports media has continued to promote a masculine representation of sports (Millington & Wilson, 2010; Messener, Duncan, & Jensen, 1993). By understanding the way in which sports media portrays sports, one can recognize how masculinity has dominated the world of sports. With the aid of two unique studies of sports media, this paper will critique the way in which media has effected the gendered depiction of sports.

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

Although the overall message of women’s sports ads is sometimes positive, theirs big different between the female and males ads. I will be using an ad by the Women’s Tennis Association’s featuring Victoria Azarrenka saying: “Strong is Beautiful” which is an inspiring message. However the way she is portray sexualizes her, the camera not only zooms to her crotch to chest to face which to me seems unnecessary, and the ad should be displaying their athleticism in a racy way. Another argument could be done, that maybe the ads are the way they are because men produce them and they don’t stop to consider. Men on the other hand, are showed at their best playing their sport. They exploit their abilities not their image. If the roles were reverse and

Advertisement is to blame for the degradation of women. Women’s progression for gender equality is being slowed down by what is being shown on television commercials that screams to the female viewers, “Wear our revealing products, or suffer the social backlash of not being pretty enough!” While it may appear outlandish to say something of this magnitude, it becomes quite obvious when one looks at the facts of advertisement and the effects that are offset by showing impossible to achieve concepts of beauty.

The role of gender in advertising has been an issue in society since modern media emerged as well as the different advertising methods. Modern media uses methods that concentrate on sex and the stereotypical images and ideas of the parts men and women play as consumers. These methods construct a female social problem that began in the 1960s with the portrayal of stereotypical housewives and of women in a general passive role. Today, this image has evolved into a new social problem for women; as they are shown in an entirely different light by the advertising world, and with more repercussions on the image of a woman if she is a minority. Men are portrayed as being aggressive, and are constantly in a pursuit of power, wealth and physical domination

From the three network affiliates they studied, they found that 96.3 percent of the coverage was for men’s sports and women only received 1.6 percent (Messner and Cooky 4). When analyzing the coverage of Sports Center, which is arguably the most popular sports show on television, they found that women still only received just 1.4 percent of their coverage (4). This study also found that 100 percent of the Sports Center programs had a lead story that was about men’s sports (4). Even the most renowned and credible sports show, which only shows sports all year long, does not even provide women’s sports with equal attention. Even more shocking than this was that the study also revealed that reporters devoted more coverage to men’s sports that were out of season than they did women’s sports that were actually in season (4). This can be extremely disrespectful to female athletes when their sport is pushed aside and ignored so that a men’s sport that is not even being played can be covered by the media. These women put all their effort into performing their sport at the highest level, but their media attention gets replaced by men who are in their off-season.

Is media becoming the enemy? For the past decades media seems to be earning a bad reputation. Mass media, including T.V, and newspaper has poisoned the minds of people in society, who supports and partakes in athletic activity. It’s evident, that in today’s society, males are the dominant figure in sports. They receive a magnificent amount of media attention than female athletes. This situation not only started recently, but from a long time ago. Young boys have more heroic figures to look up to in action cartoons and heroic images on magazines. Females on the other hand, don’t do not much action figures or heroic images to look up too.

Since the beginning of advertising the industry has used women as a focal point in a way to try to entice the viewer to buy their products. In the 40’s and 50’s ads would depict women as sexual objects that always needed to look, dress and act a certain way to maintain the approval of others. Most of the commercials and ads that came from this time were horribly sexist and demeaning. This continued stereotyping and objectification of women can still be found in today's advertising. Advertisers are culpable for the heightened body dissatisfaction amongst women due to the constant use of unrealistic images of sexy ultra-thin models. The industry has since then learned a few tricks on how to subtly cover up their old ideologies toward

Similarly women are receiving less attention and media coverage than men. When someone puts on the television and turns on a sports game, it is most likely going to be a men’s sport. Even when females get their coverage, the commentators are usually talking about their body rather than their skill. In an article, “Examination of Gender Equality and Female Participation in Sport” by Joshua A. Senne, he talks about how women are referred by their appearance rather than their skill. During a study about the media, the commentators mostly talked about the women’s hair, make-up, and body figure, rather than their ability. This also occurred after the 1996 summer Olympics, where there was a lack of promotion for female athletes and the marketing of women’s sports. These athletes were also only recognized by their physical appearance instead of their ability. The tone of these broadcasters was proved in a study that men 's events were the standard in the society rather than the women’s. They would list the event as “other” rather than saying it is a women’s sport. In the study that was conducted, it states that the gender marketing showed that the woman sports were marked as “other” on an average of 27.5 times, but it 's never happened in the men’s sporting events (Senne). There is still coverage of women 's sports, but it rarely covered. The title IX project made a pie chart about the comparison of men’s and women’s sports media coverage on the show SportsCenter on