Digital Story Proposal: Discrimination of Female Athletes in the media

For my Digital Story project, I would like to spread awareness on the discrimination of female athletes in the media.  Female athletes are not shown near the same recognition in the media as men are as professional athletes, or even college athletes.  When tuning into the sports section of the news or even on ESPN, it is very rarely that you see the stories being covered involving women sports.  It is no secret that women sports are not shown equally on television, or in a source of social media, although there seems to be no sense of change for the issue anytime soon.   40% of sport and physical activity participants are women, but on 6%-8% of total media sports coverage is devoted to women sports.  Also out of the four major newspapers (USA today, Boston Globe, Orange County Register, and the Dallas Morning News) only 3.5% of all sports stories are about only women.  Another issue dealing with Female athletes and social media is that female athletes do not have the luxury of being primarily portrayed as performance athletes, as coverage of their beauty and sex appeal usually over-shadow highlights of their on-field accomplishments. Although these newspapers, and television channels are simply giving the viewers what they want.  The targeted viewers of these channels and of sport sections in social media, are male and these men are looking for strength and impressive talent in sports, which is best shown by male athletes.  The perception of the role of women is perhaps largely to blame. Women are still seen more in the role or spectators, cheerleaders, supportive wives and mothers than for any athletic abilities they may possess. Commercial and advertisements tend to emphasize this and dwell on physical attributes and other factors rather than talent.  Women are generally viewed as “women first, and female second”, by their clothes and poses in magazines and commercials.  Media is not only degrading the athlete’s accomplishments and self- esteem, but also alienate viewers and impede the feminist movement.  Media’s sexulization does grant female athletes more publicity by concentrating on sex appeal instead athleticism and skill.   The media also generally tries to target male viewers with their sexualization of female athletes, but through objectifying women, the media ultimately fails to engage men in women’s sports.  The American public has not deemed women’s sports on par with men’s sports, and female athletes have had to embrace the media’s sexualization to emphasize their femininity and gain publicity and money. “Female athletes in the United States have historically faced resistance, even outright hostility, for mot confining themselves to ‘feminine’ activities” was a statement made by The Harvard Law Review in 1997.  The change of view on female athletes by the American public, would be the next necessary step in order to gain recognition and respect for female athletes in our country. 

 

 

Sources:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/247625-gender-discrimination-in-sports/

http://www.womenslawproject.org/NewPages/hrAthletics_Discrim.html

mahidachintan.com/documents/Dec-2012/1201.pdf

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/587/the-medias-sexualization-of-female-athletes-a-bad-call-for-the-modern-game