The Second Innings

Thanks to everyone who has engaged in conversation about my last post about media coverage of female athletes in New Zealand. 

I’ve had conversations with you via social media, and face-to-face, and the message from all of you is loud and clear – the status quo of media coverage of female athletes is not acceptable and it needs to change now.

Not only has there been critical analysis of the media over the last week (by the way, did any women play sport on Sunday TV3News? Because if they did, you didn’t cover it), but there has also been a few suggestions on how we can improve the situation. 

Here are three common themes I've discovered in the conversations that would help improve media coverage of women athletes:

1.            Remove gender marking from sport – sport is sport no matter what sex is playing.
2.            Media outlets should conduct comprehensive research alongside academics to ensure sport is covered fairly and equally.
3.            Stop sexualising female athletes and instead focus on athletes’ on-field competencies.

When men play rugby it’s just called rugby, but when women play rugby, it’s called women’s rugby. Why is that?

There’s no such thing as women’s sport. It’s just sport.

In sport, gender marking is used to segregate and define sport. Gender is defined as the traditional traits associated with masculine and feminine, which are then attached to a sex (male or female). We gender mark in sport to differentiate between the traditional and the “non-traditional” forms of the game.

For example, when men play rugby it’s just called rugby, but when women play rugby, it’s called women’s rugby. Why is that? Because rugby is traditionally associated with the masculine. And so on and so forth for other sports, like cricket, basketball, netball, hockey and tennis.

But isn’t sport just sport no matter who’s playing? By removing gender from sport and calling rugby just rugby and netball just netball then would it not help sport in general?

Imagine a news bulletin which started with “The New Zealand Cricket Team has won the World Cup”. Would you not be happy to hear that our team won the World Cup? Of course you would! Does it matter what New Zealand team has won it?

If you love sport then the gender of the athlete shouldn’t matter. Both men and women run the 100m at the Olympics, both men and women play 80 minutes of rugby, both men and women compete in the same distance in the Ironman championships.

But I hear sports editors around the country say “but the audience isn’t interested in women’s sport”. (Editors: see the note above about “women’s” sport). Is that really true? Or is it when sports editors say that, it only really means that they are not interested and can’t be bothered covering female athletes. (FYI 90 percent of sports editors in the States are men… I can think of only 3 women in NZ who would have editorial sway in the sports newsrooms – correct me if I’m wrong!)

It seems media focus on the violence in sport when men are involved, and the sex when women are involved.

Because of this attitude the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport in the States has started the #HERESPROOF project which encourages people to upload and share their experiences at sporting events involving girls and women.

Earlier this month The Center also released the documentary titled “Media Coverage and Female Athletes” which addresses how media in the US covers female athletes. They found 40 percent of athletes in the US are female, and yet they only receive 4 percent of the media coverage. They even discovered that coverage had decreased even though participation by women increased significantly.

And when female athletes are covered by the media, it’s more about their off-court stories than the on-field results. And a lot of the time the coverage of these athletes are highly sexualised.

A prime example is Sky Sport’s advertising for the ASB Classic which starts next week. In the advertisement it shows the athletes hitting the ball with their racket. But in the vast majority of the slow-motion close up images, the players’ skirts are riding up and their underwear can be seen. Instead of showing how powerful and skillful these athletes are, Sky Sport is focusing on crotch shots. Sky Sport is sexualising these athletes and it is unacceptable.

Just look at some of the images in the paper, or even worse in the men’s magazines – they are highly sexualised, showing athletes in particular poses which accentuates their “womanly features” which appeal to heterosexual males. (In academic terms this is referred to as “forced heterosexual femininity”…I could write an entire thesis on this, so let’s not wade into this today!). It seems media focus on the violence in sport when men are involved, and the sex when women are involved.

Is this showing athletes in the right way? Is this form of coverage undermining the athletes, their skills and abilities? And what example is this setting for other women and girls?

Dr Sarah Leberman and Dr Farah Palmer from Massey University explored this by analysing media coverage of the Beijing Olympics and found that female athletes only received a third of the photographic coverage in two NZ newspapers. They also found that white males also dominated. How can this under representation of female athletes be a good thing?

The Tucker Center also did some research into this, and found female athletes don’t want to be portayed in a sexualised way. They want to be recognised for their agility, skill and precision on the field. When given an option of what image they wanted to be portayed with (the choice of photos were on-court, on the red carpet, or in a bikini), 100% of athletes chose photos showing on-court competencies. If that is the way they want to be portrayed then why are the media not portraying them in this way? They are athletes, not models and not sex objects.

So what can we do to encourage all of this to happen? Let’s talk about, watch and support female athletes. Tune in, attend games, social network, and hold the media accountable.

We’ve started talking about this, so let’s turn talking into action. Together we can make a change for the better. #HERESPROOF

PS: I hope everyone has a happy and safe Xmas and New Year. And if you are out playing Back Yard Cricket this summer, remember 1 hand 1 bounce, over the fence/hedge/hit window is six and out, if you hit it you must run and it's best to play in bare feet not jandals!

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