Sexism in Sports

Sports play a big role in today’s society, by attracting many viewers and influencing people of all ages. Athletics have been proven capable of teaching children certain aspects of life such as sportsmanship, teamwork, togetherness, and also how to create friendships. There is much good that can come out of sports as they can keep us in good physical shape, improve body movement, and hand eye coordination. On the other hand, sports do have some negative issues that should be addressed. The issue I will be discussing is that of sexism in sports, concerning gender differences and stereotypes. I will also touch on the different views of people by looking at various aspects of the social computing world such as discussion boards and blogs. Blogging provides a valuable window into the problems of women and sports, because people speak more freely in blogs than they do in conversation or publicly.
Sexism can be defined in a few different ways. According to Dictionary.com, sexism is defined as “attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles” or “discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; esp., such discrimination directed against women”. Sexism in sports applies more to women than to men. Some of the problems include: The lack of women athletes in male dominated sports, women athletes have lower salaries compared to males, media portrayal of women athletes tends to be poor, and females are rarely assigned to coach male sport teams. These issues are caused by stereotypes that have been developed over time that differ in the eyes of males and females. although these stereotypes are mostly targeted towards women they can also affect men. For example, male gymnasts and cheerleaders may be looked upon differently because such sports are viewed as female dominated sports.
Before I address these problems in detail, there are two subjects worth learning about and the first is Title IX. “Title IX, is a 37-word United States law enacted on June 23, 1972 that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” (Reference.com). This law had a very large impact on athletes at the high school and college levels and on education in general. Standards were set which gave men, women, boys, and girls an equal opportunity to participate in athletics. This led to the creation of many women’s sports and, for a short period of time, coed sports. However, the law didn't seem to hold up entirely well. It did improve women’s sports tremendously and they would not be half as abundant without the law but based on gender, the athletics still were not equal. Even today we are still having difficulties with the issue as women are still marginalized and only stereotypically allowed to play certain sports that express feminine characteristics. If we are following the law, women should be allowed to play any sport they want and in reality some are still being told they cannot.
The second subject worth learning about is blogging. “The standard view of computer technology is that, hardware and software, it is a technical rather than a social artifact” (Huff, 17) However, blogging is a great social artifact and has largely become a used as a social computing device that is growing each day. It is a great tool to have and allows people to express their own personal thoughts in a new way. The best part about it is that anybody can easily become a blogger. There are web sites such as blogger.com where anyone can create their own blog absolutely free. Blogs are widely used today for personal purposes, information sources, and many businesses also have their own blogs. As you probably already understand, blogs can be very valuable for businesses. By using catchy designs companies are able to promote their services to the community through their blog posts and conversation. There are many advantages of blogs, one being that they are easy to create, as I stated above. Blogs are also very easy to maintain, search engine friendly, and allow you to interact with others. Ok, so that’s a very brief description of blogging how does blogging relate to sexism in sports? Just as with most topics that you can think of, there are many blog posts related to the sexism in sports. These posts are very helpful and allow interested viewers to notice the different point of views that can be established. The bloggers can talk about examples of sexism in sports they have personally witnessed, and speak strongly about the issue. It’s not like speaking face to face with someone which enables writers to post all their information, thoughts, and opinions, no matter how harsh they might be.
Probably the most common problem of sexism I will address is the lack of women athletes in male dominated sports. In a way, sports have encouraged a separation between males and females. When concerning the debate of either allowing or not allowing women to play males sports, the different views are gender based. The views of women tend to favor allowing them to participate and they believe that they can be just as capable as men are. They argue that, if a female is equally skilled as a male then, why shouldn't they be allowed to take part and create a coed team? Males on the other hand are usually not in favor of allowing women to participate in male sports. They complain that since Title IX has occurred, there have been numerous women sport leagues that have been created. They also disagree that women are as athletic as males and cannot play up to their skill levels due to weaknesses in strength, size, and overall athletic ability. These different views between men and women are due to stereotyping. For the most part, these stereotypes do hold true in today’s society but there are exceptions to these views as well. The idea of sports has always had a masculine viewpoint and it’s said to be unladylike for women to take part in certain sports. Sports such as tennis, golf, skating, and gymnastics, demonstrate the agility and elegance natural to women so this is where we notice women athletes the most. Women who choose to play a different sport such as basketball or football may be stereotyped as a tomboy or lesbian.
“It is not surprising that sports such as hockey, boxing, and weightlifting, which resemble masculine athletics, have the greatest need to attract audiences and the fear of lesbianism are most prominent. Take, for instance, the video Pumping Iron II, where we see women involved in bodybuilding and entering a bodybuilding contest. This is not a women's sport traditionally and the women who enter these contests are judged not only by the audience, but the judges that score them in the contest. Now, the contestants should be judged on muscle tone of the body right. Wrong. In order to define which woman has the best and most well defined body, the judges feel compelled to define "body" in relation to "woman" (Banas, Bryn Mawr College).” As you can see, there are many instances in which these stereotypes occur and certain gender differences have now become more regular, making stereotypes at times un-honorable.
On May 10, 2006 in a message board from www.locationlohan.com there was a question posted that created some debate amongst the viewers. A message board is, “an Internet-based forum for an interest group which can also be called a bulletin board, discussion board, or interactive message board. They usually offer chat, e-mail, and have the ability of sharing documents (Unknown, Dictionary.com).” The question was, “should women be allowed to play on a men’s sports team, such as a football team? (Unknown, www.locationlohan.com).” Here are two examples from the discussion that show both views. The first blog states:
“Coaches are sexist at my school and won't let play because i'm a girl. In their words "girls cant play football because they're all too weak." Only one coach goes against this only partially. And that's Mr. Joe. (Coach Flynt) Remember he's only partially non-sexist. Sexism is wrong towards both genders, its discrimination just like discrimination between blacks and whites. It's WRONG! Sexism is out of control in the modern school and it has to be stopped. Especially sexism in football. Girls are just as good a men and vica-versa. (Unknown, www.locationlohan.com).”
The second blog states:
“Sexism is defined as discrimination against people based on their sex rather than their individual merits. Women, as borge stated above are not physically able to compete with men. It is nothign to do with the fact your football coach is saying to himself "This woman cant play on this team, this is a MANS team". Your coach his saying to himself "If i let this woman play on the football team, there is a serious chance of her getting injured. Id rather not put her, myself, the members of the team, and the school in that situation." As for the whole thing about rape. Those are isolated incidents that really hold no merit in the intent of this conversation. Borge: Perhaps in Europe men dress up in skirts and play field hockey. But in the good ol USA, we dont! (Unknown, www.locationlohan.com).”
Another viewer shares her thoughts and says sexism doesn't even exist in sports.
“Sexism in sport does not exist anymore, simple as that. That your coach is different that's his business, but there are no rules against it. In some sports the quest to have women in it is even bad for the sport. Woman are basically allowed to play any sport they want there are no rules against it, but it's just a physical fact that they can't. If they would compete at the same level and men would always win it would get boring, wouldn't it? (Unknown, www.locationlohan.com).”
As you can see, many people have many different views on this topic. This is why it is so great and important that we have discussion boards and other social computing resources to share are views with one another. These devices help us to express our feelings on subjects that are important to us, as well as learn a different point of view by reading others opinions.
Another problem concerning professional women athletes is how poorly women athletes are portrayed. First think of how many women athletes you can recall? Now, think of how many male athletes you can recall? Your list of males is almost guaranteed to at least double the number of females you named. To go even further with this take a good look at the list of women athletes you named. Do you remember where you had seen them last or even what sport they play? Today’s most popular women athletes are known more for looks than athletic abilities. Though these women are very good at the sports they play, the media chooses to portray them for their attractiveness because they claim that it’s best for business. Even ESPN does this. There is a poll done annually on ESPN.com to find out who is the hottest female athlete of the year.
“What makes an athlete hot? One who plays hard and looks good while breaking a sweat. Page 2 nominated 10 accomplished female athletes who have gained popularity with their achievements and sex appeal in the last year (Unknown, ESPN.com).”
Some of the fault for the way they are portrayed maybe the fault of the athletes themselves but who would blame them. There was also a poll taken in the sports section of AOL.com that turned this idea into a competition where they actually formed a playoff bracket (see next page).
























(Unknown, AOL Sports)
Female athletes do make a lot of money but it doesn't come close to what males make. There was a very interesting blog post at www.unlockedsports.com that named and described the top six most popular athletes according to Google. The popularity of these findings was determined by entering the name of the athlete into Google.com and ranking the result. The results of this showed that Tiger Woods was the leader with 10,400,000 web results and he is known for his outstanding professional golf career, Nike clothing, and numerous endorsement deals. The second athlete is David Becham with 3,020,000 web results as he is known for his soccer abilities. The third most popular athlete is Maria Sharapova with 2,440,000 web results and she is the fourth ranked women’s tennis player. OJ Simpson placed in the fourth spot with 2,410,000 web results which are due to his NFL career and crime issues. The fifth most popular athlete is Anna Kournikova with 2,260,000 web results derived from professional tennis skills and her modeling career. The sixth and final athlete recognized was Michael Jordan with 2,210,000 web results and is known for his professional basketball career and endorsements as well. From the blog we can conclude that athletes are known not only for athletics but for endorsements as well. It shows that men too can become popular from endorsements just as women and when talking about popularity, women can compete with men. One part of the blog that did show a difference in gender was the very ends of the descriptions of each athlete where they showed a short video clip of them. The video clips of the males were all based on highlights in their athletic careers. For example, the clip of Tiger Woods was called, “Tiger Woods' unbelievable chip shot on the 16th hole at the Masters in 2005” (Unknown, unlockedsports.com). The video clips for the female athletes tended to be more photo based. The title of Maria Sharapova's clip was “here is a hot video of Maria Sharapova both on and off the tennis court” and the title of Anna Kournikova's clip was “here is a slide show of Anna Kournikova both on and off the court” (Unknown, unlockedsports.com). Without even viewing these clips the titles indicate that physical attractiveness has influenced their popularity. Women athletes can actually make more money from advertisements and endorsements than they do for playing their sports. For an example let’s take a look at Anna Kournikova.
Anna Kournikova is now a retired Russian tennis player. She was never the leader in singles play, but she was at times the worlds number one doubles player with Martina Hingis as her partner. She became one of the best known tennis players world-wide but was this because of her tennis skills? It may have been where she was initially noticed but the majority of her publicity came from her personal life as well as numerous modeling shots. If you were to do a Google image search with her name in it you would find many pictures like this.
(Unknown, Google Image)
Without a doubt there will be more pictures of her in a bikini or sexy clothing than her playing tennis. In a message board at www.kournikova.com, which is the official site of Anna Kornikoa, there were three different categories titled, The Fans, The Tennis, and Photo Exchange. The descriptions of these categories are the following: “The Fans- Talk about Anna, her television appearances, swap viewpoints, share interesting information and make friends – all in the main fans forum!, The Tennis- Analyze Anna's game, her future opponents, discuss upcoming matches and her latest results - it's a forum open exclusively for tennis talk!, and Photo Exchange- Download, upload, swap and share your photos of Anna Kournikova in here (Unknown, Kournikova.com).” The funny part about this is that the most visited category is The Fans which has 3,348 threads with 46,321 posts. The next highest visit is that of Photo Exchange with 1,946 threads and 66,855 posts. This leaves The Tennis category with only 907 threads and 15,898 posts. Clearly from these statistics, Kournikova is known more for here appearance than here athletic ability. This does sound improper when thinking of the issue of sexism in sports however Kournikva does use this to her advantages. Her salary for tennis is ten million dollars versus her salary for endorsements, advertisements, and modeling which combined easily tops $10 million.
It is for these reasons that it should come to no surprise that woman athletes also receive far less media coverage then men. According to the USC News, men's sports receive more than ninety percent of the coverage on television news and sports highlight shows. The response and reason for this underlies the idea that the viewers are far more interested in male sports and therefore that is what makes more money. What does this suggest about women athletes and why dont people take them more seriously? Both men and women viewers prefer to watch male sport rather than female. It is very difficult for females to make themselves known and the most popular women athletes are know for beauty rather than athletic ability. The prettier they are and the more revealing photos they take then the better the chance is of them being well known.
Aside from women athletes we can also discuss the fact that female coaches are also stereotyped differently then males. Male coaches are said to be more strict and efficient. Female coaches are considered to be less strict and receive less recognition then male coaches. It is for theses views that women also receive lower salaries then males. Another issue that lies within coaching is what gender they coach. Males are able to coach males and females without a problem. According to parentsassociation.com, both sexes prefer male coaches. “Eighty percent of all coaches at the high school and college level are male. Only two percent of the coaches of women's teams are female” (Unknown, Unlocked Sports). the article then recognizes six myths that have evolved around the issue which are based on the following: 1) female coaches don't win championships, 2) women are less intense, and less demanding of their players, 3) women players don't listen to women coaches as well as they listen to males, 4) women want male coaches, 5) older women coaches no longer have the knowledge and skills to coach competitive programs, and 6) women coaches have a tendency to be lesbians. These myths may sound a bit harsh towards women but seem to be well thought out. Its hard for many to deny that these thoughts do exist today which at the same time makes us realize how unequal and gender based sports actually are. Women coaches usually coach women’s teams because of stereotypes created in today’s society that put an awkward view upon women coaching a male team. There have been times in the past where this has occurred by today it is almost unheard of.
However, female coaches are well accepted in sports such as cheer leading. Cheer leading its self can cause another heap of trouble in sports sexism. Many people say things like “cheering is not a sport,” or, “cheerleaders are just something nice to look at.” One day while instant messaging a friend of mine, by the name of Beth Heath who played high school soccer, I asked her how she felt about cheerleading. She replied by stating, “Cheerleading is not a sport and all “the rah rah” just makes me sick.” Like I said before, males too are susceptible to sexism when concerning sports such as cheer leading. Males who are cheerleaders are immediately labeled as feminine. They too are stereotyped as gay which causes disturbances and issues in their performance. They are unable to accomplish that of females and are used mostly as spotters for women. There are only so many things they can do on a cheerleading team and there is no hope for them becoming a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.
To overcome this issue of sexism we need to realize that sports such as rugby, boxing, and football are targeted towards males and sports that are considered to be open to both sexes still tend to favor one. New sports should address the need for the disabled and other minority groups as well. An example of a sport like this is trampolining. It can include males and females and can be introduced at ages even younger than five.
Just in case anyone reading this still thinks that women are not marginalized when concerning sports I would like to hear them try and explain this next example. By far the most obvious form of sexism towards women is embedded in the sport of car racing. It is a great example because there is no reason why women can't drive a car the same as a man. In fact, people have actually trained monkeys to drive cars. If there is any advantage at all it would probably favor women because they don't weigh as much as men do. There have been only four women to ever race in the Indy league and one recently by the name of Danica Patrick. She is a small woman who is a fast driver and has great potential to dominate race circuits across America. Of course she has mainly become popular for being a great racer and even more popular because she is a competitive female in a male dominated sport. She has proven her self by winning races and consistently beating other male drivers. However, there are still some sexist people out there that want Danica banned from racing and this helped form a great blog post at lockedonsports.blogspot.com.
“I am not sure I am following the whole Danica Patrick thing. The issue here is that there is absolutely no reason why women shouldn’t be able to drive like a man. Women can drive a car as well as a man, there is no debate. What is amazing is that there have only been 4 women to ever drive the Indy and their are not any on the NASCAR circuit. This has to be the most obvious example of denying women opportunities that I have ever seen. It might be the most gregarious example of sexism anywhere in or out of the sports world. Think about this. On just about all other issues of women v. men in sports there is some sort of justification of how the games are different or physical capability is different, but in car racing there is none of that. The only thing that is going on in car racing is that the old boy’s network is corralling all the money for their own good. The fact is some male drivers have complained that by being lighter they may have an advantage. If that is true their should be more women and they should dominate. The issue is that the Letterman Rahl race team was finally willing to give over some of its precious green. This is about money and Danica Patrick has money backing her. This is about money and how without any explanation women are being denied the chance (Unknown, Lockedonsports.com).”
The post is very truthful and morally correct. As we already know, title IX grants access to all genders in sports so Danica really shouldn't have any threat of being banned. Another great aspect of blogging is that is allows viewers to leave comments on posts of their interest to show what they believe about the issue. This post generated 18 comments which were all positive and agreeing with what the post stated. Maybe if more people were to read just that one post alone we wouldn't have as big of a problem with sexism today. The only problem with the sport of racing that I can see is that there are not enough female drivers. I would also like to add that even with the talent and driving skills of Danica Patrick, she too suffers just as other female athletes. You will find many pictures of her on Google as well but we need to remember that is her choice to model and money wise it can be a large benefit for her to do so.
One question that may come to concern, when thinking of how negatively these women portray themselves is, are professional female athletes good role models for young girls? Most of the time when considering role models children will choose a person who is a professional athlete in their favorite spots. There has been much controversy with female performers such as Britney Spears who was once a sweet young teenage girl that was admired by many but suddenly took a turn for the worst as she portrayed sexuality and was even seen drunk and on stage at the MTV movie awards. The main point is that her skimpy outfits do not depict the image of good role model for young girls. This goes the same for female athletes as they to portray themselves sexually by participating in many photo shoots and advertisements while wearing next to nothing. Are these females really who kids are looking up to these days? Is there a connection between how these women are portrayed and how young girls dress? Girls now a days dress more for fashion then ever before. It’s obvious that they do intentionally dress to produce some sexual attraction just as the celebrities. Just the other day in Keene, New Hampshire I saw a group of young women wearing boots and miniskirts with a temperature below 30 degrees. Immediately I thought about how ridiculous this was that these women were walking in the freezing cold with bare legs and boots obviously trying to dress to impress. If this is considered fashionable in today’s society then this is a sad sign. There is no need for girls to go through the pain of standing in the cold just to look good and in reality this odd look is not that impressive to begin with. The image of these females makes young girls strive to obtain their structure and features. This can cause anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa to become an option as well.
On a lighter note, there are a few women out there that are portrayed in a positive manner. For an example we can look at Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Joyner-Kersee was an outstanding Olympic contender who performed well in the heptathlon and the long jump. Over the course of her career she achieved six metals and three of them were gold metals. She was a very dedicated athlete and practiced and trained hard to become the athlete she is. Unlike other female athletes, she is not harmed by sexism. Though she is not competing against males, Joyner-Kersee is portrayed only for her athletic ability and being a good person. She presents herself very well and sets a great example as a role model for young girls.
It’s obvious that women are marginalized when concerning sports. They are not able to participate in male dominated sports, have lower salaries then men, portrayed negatively by the media, and are unable to coach male sport teams. It seems that in today’s society just being and athlete is not enough. Female athletes today, endorsements, and modeling opportunities to achieve the greatest salary and recognition as possible. To be a popular athlete you just need to be pretty and put your face out there on the cover of few magazines. Though it all sounds bad it is really difficult to interpret because women do choose to portray themselves in such ways. Although they do gain remarkable advantages from endorsements and such they still have a choice and are not forced to do anything. In some cases their choices can also affect others such as their fans who strive to be like them. There are also times were we can say the same about men for they too are sometimes marginalized just like women but the fact is that the two are hard to compare when instances occur much more frequently in women. There are many different views of the problem of sexism in sports that we can learn of. A great way to learn of these views is by viewing blogs and other social computing devices. By searching through and reading we can obtain much information and get a sense of how others feel about the topic. They also give everyone a chance to speak for themselves with an easy atmosphere that allows us to say everything we want to say no matter how rude or harsh it might be. Blogs can be influential and help to change the minds of the people which is what needs to happen in order for us to overcome the problems with sexism in sports.













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