Women In Sports
My chosen major of communication studies stemmed from my interest in working within sports media, and more specifically, being an on field sports reporter. I was originally inspired by Jenny Dell, who at the time was the on field sports reporter for the Red Sox on NESN. However, as I've gotten older, I have realized that women in sports media do not get as much respect or opportunities as the men do.
During my research into this career, I focused also on mental aspects one must acquire to thrive within this career. Within the journal, Feminist Media Studies, Guy Harrison writes about the importance of having thick skin in this industry as a woman. Harrison recalled the experience of one woman in particular, Lisa Guerrero, who ended up leaving her job as a sports reporter in 2004 due to “years of sexual harassment and abuse in her profession”(Harrison). Harrison exemplifies the importance of change in perspective of women in the sports industry, as well as shining a light upon the hostility and humiliation too many women must endure. This shame should not be a requirement that comes with the job, and that's why it is important to me to increase female representation within this career, so hopefully this stigma against women can continue to decrease. Similarly, in the article International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Toni Bruce recounts the “mainstream marginalization of women’s sports”(Bruce). Not only are women sportscasters the minority in the industry, but women's sports are as well. All around, sports media has done a poor job of equally representing women and men, and I would very much like to see a change in this.
Over the years, progress has been made to highlight women in sports due to it being a traditionally patriarchal industry. However, gender inequality in the media is vastly still present. In order to understand what must be done to shorten the gap, it is important to have an understanding of where we started, where we are currently.
Between the 1940s and the 1950s, women began playing sports professionally. With a lack of men due to the war efforts, women took up the role of playing in a professional sport as entertainment while the men were away. At the time, baseball was the country’s most popular and unifying sport. Thus, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League was born in 1943. The league consisted of 15 teams and continued on for a decade. Attendance to the games eventually rose to about 900,000 by the time the 1950s came around. However, by the 1954 season, the wars end resulted in a rise of mens baseball games taking back its prominence among audiences and were televised over the women. At this time, the women back away from the game, take back their role of maintaining the household, and gave up their gloves (Girl Talk).
The increase of women's attendance to college during this time resulted in a more widespread acceptance of women's sports both in college and in high school. Wilma Rudolph began the women’s “uprising” by proving her extreme athletic ability, even as a woman, being the very first to win 3 gold medals in the 1960s Olympics. She is credited with beginning the change of perspective surrounding women in sports. The Division of Girls and Women in Sport (DGWS) altered their policy in 1962 in favor of the creation of college level sports (Girl Talk). This resulted in more options in competitive levels for women as well as many more opportunities for both players and coaches. Kathrine Switzer became the very first woman to run in the Boston Marathon in 1967 (Grinberg). At this time, this was not allowed and there is actually this photograph of the director of the marathon, Jock Semple, attempting to take off her number.
In 1972, President Nixon signed Title IX into the Educational Amendment requiring all high school and college to provide equal opportunities for all students, no matter the gender. The NCAA along with many athletic departments attempted to fight this act as pertaining to them, however they lost. The “battle of the sexes” was a tennis match in 1973 in which a woman, Billie Jean King, competed against a man, Bobby Riggs, professionally and she beat him (Shifflett). This event again rose awareness for women in sports and gained respect for women across the globe as well in this field. During the 1970s, women’s participation in college level sports increased a great amount and nearly half of these women were receiving scholarships from the NCAA as well.
As women's competitive sports increased in popularity and participation continued to grow, the NCAA began endorsing women's sports in 1981 and added to their legitimacy. More than 8 sports are now being offered to women in college as compared to only two back in 1972 (Girl Talk). As of 2001, 43% of college athletes were women as compared to 15% before Title IX implementation. Scholarships have now skyrocketed for women playing sports in college, however, men are still receiving more money and scholarships than women. Three million girls participated in at least one sport during the 2002-03 school year, whereas less than 300,000 did so in 1971.
On March 1st of this year, Forbes put out an article discussing the topics brought up by a recent Nike ad. In their piece, “Nike Declares 2019 It’s Year For Women”, Pamela Danziger addresses Nike as the leader of the fashion industry in brand value according to Brand Finance’s top 50 list of the world’s most valuable fashion brands (Danziger). This fact is of major importance to me when looking further into the article to the actual ad Nike put out naming this year, the year for women. Danziger credits the brand for going from being “aspirational” to “inspirational” as it has grown. However, although Nike’s ad “Dream Crazier” narrated by Serena Williams was groundbreaking and empowering, I do question the genuinity behind it on Nike’s end.
As stated, the ad is narrated by Serena Williams, five-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships in the singles division and four time Olympic gold medalist. It also featured countless other world class athletes including, but not limited to, Simone Biles, Ibtihaj Muhammad, and members of the U.S. womens national soccer team (Danziger). As the minute and a half long ad plays, clips of young girls to women playing sports both recreationally and professionally are shared with Serena Williams calling out all of the stigmas and stereotypes of females in the sports industry. The double-standard she presents along with real life coverage of these situations shows the clear inequality regarding gender in sports. She states; “If we show emotion, we’re called dramatic. If we want to play against men, we’re nuts. And if we dream of equal opportunity, delusional.” Kathrine Switzer, who was previously mentioned in the timeline, is also featured as a strong forerunner in the fight for equal representation. By the end of the video, “It’s only crazy until you do it” comes up on the screen followed by Nike’s trademark “Just do it.”
While the commercial is exceptionally made and completely moving, I call into question Nike’s intentions for making it. This ad was put out just after their controversial “Dream Crazy” campaign in which they featured Colin Kaepernick. After this had people buzzing and split the nation on whether it was wrong of Nike to do or not, I wonder if Nike wanted to repair their reputation with a campaign empowering women, which nobody could have a problem with. While they also rise high above any other fashion brand being worth approximately $32.4 billion, the insertion of their brand throughout the video as well as directly at the end makes me question whether they saw this as a marketing strategy more than an effort to fix a major problem in the sports industry. With the support of many famous female athletes, the ads legitimacy for the movement is heightened and much more convincing. I believe that the ad does a great job at spreading awareness for the issue and making strides towards bettering the situations faced by women currently as well in the future, yet I do believe that part of Nike’s intentions were to advertise their brand. If they wanted to strictly add fuel to the campaign themselves, I believe they would have taken their brand out of it entirely, however it is constantly shown and especially highlighted as the very last thing a viewer would see and remember at the end of the ad.
Media coverage as well as campaigns in support of this movement are now the center of attention in the journey towards equal representation for both women and men. Coverage in the media of women's sports is extremely low and just a fraction of the exposure time that men receive. The Association for Women in Sports Media will continue to work for the efforts of equal representation in both sports as well as sports media as a career (AWSM). Not only will this encourage girls with an interest in sports to take it up as a career, but it will also boost the confidence of players as they see themselves represented in the media. Representation in the media of all kinds is so important to every person feeling like they are apart of something, have equal opportunities, and most importantly, that they have the freedom to do whatever they want in this life as long as they work hard, and want it enough.
Bibliography
“A History Of Women's Sports Media Coverage Progress & How Much Further It Needs To Go.” GirlTalkHQ, 2 Dec. 2018, girltalkhq.com/a-history-of-womens-sports-media-coverage-progress-how-much-further-it-needs-to-go/.
Bruce, Toni. “Assessing the Sociology of Sport: On Media and Representations of Sportswomen.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 50, no. 4–5, June 2015, pp. 380–384. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1012690214539483.
Danziger, Pamela N. “Nike Declares 2019 Its Year For Women.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Mar. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2019/03/01/nike-the-worlds-most-valuable-fashion-brand-declares-2019-its-year-for-women/#191e1129419d.
“Gender Equality in Sports Media.” UNESCO, 24 July 2019, en.unesco.org/themes/gender-equality-sports-media.
“Gender in Sports Media.” NUMA, 23 July 2016, web.northeastern.edu/numa/gender-in-sports-media/.
Grinberg, Emanuella. “1st Woman to Officially Run Boston Marathon Does It Again, 50 Years Later.” CNN, Cable News Network, 18 Apr. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/us/boston-marathon-kathrine-switzer-trnd/index.html.
Shifflett, Bethany, et al. "Gender Bias in Sports-Media Analytics." Journal of Sports Media, vol. 11 no. 2, 2016, p. 111-128. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/jsm.2016.0014.
“We Are AWSM.” AWSM, awsmonline.org/we-are-awsm.
“You Have to Have Thick Skin’: Embracing the Affective Turn as an Approach to Investigating the Treatment of Women Working in Sports Media.” Taylor & Francis, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2018.1498123.