Women in Sports Title IX Requires gender equality in any form of federal education that has funding Funds for sport teams men and women can take same classes standardized testing is same sexual harassment laws in place Became associated with athletics when women college sports demanded it be enforced with athletics Athletics typically gave more attention and money to men Women went from hoping for a team to hoping to make the team Now half of all women are involved in some kind of competitive sports Media and the female athlete Bias in coverage Messner finds that women get about 3 of all sports coverage When you do see women they are sexualized in a way that it is hard to know what sport they even play shown off the court This finding has remain unchanged since the past even though there are more female sports reporters than ever o Responding to reader interest o Socialization and social learning the way we are trained to learn about sports o Journalists are unaware of the bias o Female athlete is symbolically annihilated Bias in the way athletes are photographed and filmed o Female tennis players have angles through their legs o Men have camera looking up at them powerful o Women have camera angle looking down at them make them look smaller o More likely to see a woman crying o Slow motion in women Bay watch culture Makes you think its slower than it actually is Commentary s Influence Messner Gender Marking women s version of the sport o Pink and purple graphics Hierarchy of Naming o Referring to women as girls o Referring to women by their first name instead of last name or both shows that they are subordinate Bias gets embedded o Women announcers do the same thing that male announcers do there is not difference Stereotyping o Naturally less exciting More angles and special effects used on men s If you are an athlete you must be a lesbian Men Sexuality heterosexuality OJ s incident expressed as an innocent mistake and emphasized his Greg Lougeinous was a swimmer and the emphasis and sympathy was put towards people that came in contact with him because he was gay Effects Why does this matter o Smaller audiences o Less enthusiasm for women s sports These biases affect motor performance o Harrison and Fredrickson had girls throw a softball as fast as they could in 3 tries o Had the girls look at pictures where girls were highly sexualized or pictures of them as actual athletes o Initially no difference in how fast they threw the ball The second time the girls who saw the sexual images threw the ball worse o Seeing what your body can do boosts your performance and seeing the other pictures made you more self conscious Messner White men were voices of authority commentators Nice guys finish last aggressiveness and toughness were rewarded with good commentary Men give up their bodies for the team praised for injury In this class we have identified many biases in media coverage of athletes For this short essay 3 pages choose a text article video news coverage related blog or video content pertaining to a female athlete Analyze the portrayal in light of the research we discussed in class Do you see evidence of the bias Messner and others have observed in their research What conclusions can we draw from these observations When male athletes receive media attention such coverage is primarily focused on their skilled performance When female athletes receive media attention the media is much more likely to focus on their physical attractiveness or non sport related activities Images or discussion of women athletes is almost entirely absent in the sports programs that boys watch most Messner Does such coverage help or hurt women in sports Does such coverage help or hurt male attitudes toward female athletes Don t forget to include a coherent thesis statement and to support your argument with concrete examples from the text s you choose Be sure to include at least one outside academic source to support your points The different types of media coverage received between female and male athletes cause viewers to take female athletes less seriously than they do male athletes This is due to sexualized stereotyping hierarchy of naming and gender marking Messner M A Dunbar M Hunt D 2000 The Televised Sports Manhood Formula Journal of Sport and Social Issues 25 370 379 Maria Sharapova Has a New Man CNN Turner Broadcasting System Inc 2013 Web Lopiano D A 2008 Media Coverage of Women s Sports Is Important Sports Management Resources Retrieved from http www sportsmanagementresources com library media coverage womens sports