So as I’ve shown through my previous Civic Issues Blogs, women’s rights play a factor in almost everyone’s day to day life. Today, I’m going to talk about women’s portrayal in sports and sports media. I’ve been trying to gain muscle mass for the past few months (without much luck, but I’m definitely stronger!!) , and I have a tendency to google new workouts. What I’ve discovered is that you have two options when searching for workouts:
the Cosmopolitan Five Minute Sexy Speed Workout,
or the Men’s Fitness Strong Training Workout for Men.
It has made me increasingly angry with each week passing the way the media tends to portray women working out as such a big deal as opposed to men working out is assumed. When you look up arm workouts, the first four pages of photos on google are men, and when you finally reach a women, it is a shot of her from behind, with the focus mainly on her bottom half if you know what I mean.
Of many many women in sports medias studies done, a study in 2014 showed that women make up less than five percent of sports anchors, and acknowledgement of women’s sports is very rare on air (with the few exceptions like the Williams sisters). A study done at the University of Southern California showed that coverage of women’s sports on national television has actually declined from the 1990s to the early 2010s to 1.6 percent of total airtime. In fact, they made you a list (as seen below) of other things in 2010 that received airtime instead of women in sports.
“• a swarm of bees invading a Red Sox/Yankees game
• a giant corndog that cost $25 at an Arizona Diamondbacks game
• a ribbon-cutting for a restaurant opened by Tommy Lasorda
• where former Lakers player Kendall Marshall will find a good burrito in Milwaukee (Chipotle)
• a stray dog that became a spring training mascot for the Brewers”
I think it’s incredible important for women to be represented in sports and in sports media for obvious reasons. Feminism is about asserting the notion that women and men are equals, and while physically men do have the upper hand in that arena, they most certainly do not have the upper hand in all sports and that does not mean that we shouldn’t acknowledge women working just as hard and doing just as incredible things in the world of sports. As a personal note, my dad always encouraged us to play on boys teams (basketball at age 12 being the only girl on the team was my prime) and we were playing baseball from a very young age. We used to go to summer camps with women college softball teams as our coaches, and looking back that may be the best way to implement the idea of women in sports: by showing them other older women in sports! Having them as my teacher definitely encouraged me to keep trying during softball because suddenly I had something I could be working towards in the sports world. Granted, I quit my softball team sophomore year of high school, but still I knew I could go onto something!
This semester, I’ve had the pleasure of reading and learning about different forms of feminism and gender roles through both my research for blog posts and reading my classmates blogs on gender roles. I really do think I will continue to learn more about feminism and its importance in both men and women’s lives. I now feel much more comfortable raising my opinion on these issues and hope to contribute positively to the feminist movement in the years to come.
Works Cited:
Women’s Sports Are Getting Less and Less Airtime
Feminist.org: Empowering Women in Sports
“One Of Feminism’s Stickiest Subjects”: The Sports Question
(CNN) The new women warriors: Reviving the fight for equal rights
ou may not be able to look like Mila Kunis.
d have your entire body change overnight. Your body takes time to change, don’t pressure it!!
Have a great rest of your freshman year!!