Research in “The Serena Show: Mapping Tensions Between Masculinized and Feminized Media Portrayals of Serena Williams and the Black Female Sporting Body” highlights the media's failure to represent black female athletes in positive and inspirational ways. Despite the Under Armour commercial featuring both male and female athletes, there is not a single black woman represented. This exclusion perpetuates harmful stereotypes that hinder black female athletes like Serena Williams. Although the commercial does not outwardly represent black female athletes negatively, the fact that it does not include them at all only assists in disregarding the achievements of these
Sagas article Athletic or Sexy? A Comparison of Female Athletes and Fashion Models in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues explores why some feel that females shouldn’t play physically demanding sports because it is a “turn off” and doesn’t make a female attractive. Sagas explains how some women are afraid to play sports because potential boyfriends or spouses feel that it is unattractive and their significant other wouldn’t support them. Sagas explained that the possible reasoning behind such an argument is because a good portion males would rather be seen with a model than an athlete. Sagas makes that claim because males often feel weak when being around a female athlete as men are often scared to be beat by females because it could make a male look bad as many assume that men are supposed to be tougher than women.
Cooky argues that participating in sports does not take away a woman’s femininity, despite many societal stereotypes, a woman does not have to choose between being feminine and engaging in a sport. Rather, sports require even more maintenance that surpasses the one needed to maintain a woman’s femininity. When covering women in sports, many sports reporters choose to focus on the “‘heterosexiness’ of the athletes more than their performances” (Cooky 98). Women who choose to participate in vigorous physical activities and resist engaging in activities to produce their feminine bodies are seen as masculine. This negative discourse around women in sports provided another example of how SI for women serves as an outlet for women to participate in physical activity.
However, there is still more work to be done in regards to athletics. By a lack of funding and coverage the media is choosing to highlight a female athlete’s femininity over her achievements –negatively affecting the nation’s young female
When this article came out by the New York Times, people were astonished that this controversial issue of body image was coming to the for-front through a newspaper article. Here is Serna Williams on the eve of here Wimbledon final win, and New York Times is talking about her body, what a time to bring this up! Serna teaches girl athletes around the world about hard dedication to win, and love what you do…not that she is afraid to show her arms because they can resemble a man’s arms. It angered people everywhere, here is an example of the media use an athlete’s spotlight, and tarnishing it for all the wrong reasons. Many considered this to be a criticism on Serna’s gender and race.
There are many people who support females competing with males and many people who do not. Females should be able to play sports with males if they are good enough to compete at the intensity level of males. Female athletes should be allowed to compete with male athletes for many reasons. For example, if there is an insanely good female basketball player and a team of pretty good male basketball player, they should be able to play basketball together. The female should be allowed to compete at her fullest potential.
Erin, The part of you post regarding woman being sports fans shed light on how gender norms have conditioned society (and me) to think woman are not generally interested in sports. I’m not a sports fan, and I don’t make attempts to pretend that I do; because of this I’m often in disbelieve when I hear woman talk about watch sports. During the Cavs season several female co-workers would mention watching the game, and in my head I would think you’re only watching the game because you’re husband is interested, or because it’s the big talk right now. This is terrible on my part for stereotyping that woman may not be genuinely interested in sports. The interpretation I have is common, and woman are often accused of simply engaging in sports to appear
1.The sports industry is considered to be a very male dominated area which has led to the inequality between men and women in electronic and print media (Wood,2011). The presence of women in sports has increased over the years, however, “women in the sport media are vastly underrepresented” (Woods, 2011, p. 89). It was reported that “males made up 94% of sport editors, 90% of assistant sport editors, [and] 94% of sport columnists” (Woods,2011, p. 91). This shows that the majority of jobs in sports media are male workers. Women in sports media have multiple reasons to why inequality exists in the workplace.
A study done in 2019 came to the conclusion that only 14% of sports highlights and news were about women teams or individuals. Meanwhile the other 86% were turned towards mens sports. Women's sports are incredibly underrepresented in the media, underscoring the idea of conforming to gender norms. The idea of strong female representation in sports should be focused on more often because it is used to inspire younger generations on how far women have come, and how they keep taking steps towards equality.
Persuasive Writing In my writing I am going to be talking about whether or not professional female athletes should be paid the same as male athletes in the same sport? In my opinion yes I do think that female athletes should be paid the same amount as the male athletes. I think this because there are some females out there that are as good or maybe even better than some male athletes. For female athletes what they do is there job, they get paid to this job,but same for male athletes it is a job for them to but why do the females not get the same amount of money the men do for doing the same sport.
Through this research, it’s evident that social media has had the greatest impact in breaking down the inequalities between men and women athletes. It has allowed athletes to bring major issues to light and sparked conversations and changed the views of society. If you look at the history of sports in the media, the coverage and portrayal has changed. However, even though the change brings women athletes closer to an equal industry they still have a long way to go. Despite the increase in the amount of coverage, how they are portrayed has the most impact on societal views.
The sport domain has been traditionally considered an exclusive masculine field. Historically, women could not take part in sport until 1900 and they were allowed to join sports that did not provide physical contact or strain. Nowadays, although females can take part in every sport activity, gender stereotypes in sport still exist (Friedricks & Eccles, 2005). The persistence of gender stereotypes in sport could determine a phenomenon known as stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson, 1995; Steele, 1997; Steele, Spencer & Aronson, 2002). Stereotype threat consists in a suboptimal performance within a task related to a judgment dimension along which that particular social group is “known” to be “weak”.
Losing someone close to you is probably the most hurtful thing to happen. In 2004, someone precious to me was incredibly sick. Even before the sickness, she was a very strong woman who always wanted better for everyone she loved. She was one of the most inspirational and important people in my life. We had a pretty strong relationship and it grew stronger when she got sick.
Women have come a long way in the fight for equality – in the 1970s women fought for things like equal pay and equal opportunities in the workplace, yet this is still an issue today. This is even relevant to sport as sportsmen earn more than sportswomen for doing the same job. For years’ gender inequality has plagued professional sports, with people suggesting women’s sport is of a lower quality and women will never be as good as their male counterparts. On my cover I decided to blow up a picture of Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya.
When the media did show the female athletes they always showed the negative plays in the clips of commercials making the girls look bad and weak. “Womens sports continues to be covered in ways that convey the message to audiences that women's sports
