http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mdbLVQzjiY
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Female Athletes in Magazines
In the early 1970's, female and male athletics were blatantly unequal. Female athletics received very little funding or equipment. Their seasons were really short because people didn't think that women had the stamina to last a full season. Female athletes received almost no recognition(1).
On June 23,1972, Title IX was enacted. It emphasized equal opportunity for men and women in sports. Today, Dartmouth and most other colleges abide by Title 9.There are 34 varsity sports teams at Dartmouth- 16 female, 16 male, and 2 co-ed. Schools around the country are dedicated to making sure that female and male athletic teams receive equal funding.
Clearly female athletics have progressed significantly since Title 9 was enacted. But in American society today, are male and female athletes viewed as equals?
After doing a bit of research, I realized that a lot of people were wondering the same thing. A Google scholar search provided me with a bunch of different scholarly articles about how female athletes are represented in magazines and other forms of media. I found a really interesting blog: http://nicolemlavoi.com, which is entirely devoted to issues with how the media represents women athlete. I found one of her posts to be particularly interesting, she talked about how in 2007, only 3.6% of the covers of Sports Illustrated featured a female athlete.
The author of the blog then went on to talk about how when females are featured in sports magazines they typically pose in "sexualized positions" that accentuate their femininity. In her post she included a video clip that's pretty interesting and highlights her main points: http://www.kare11.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=65784301001#/Lindsey+Vonn+poses+for+Sports+Illustrated+swimsuit+issue/65784301001.
There have been a lot of academic studies that show that women athletes are underrepresented in newspapers,magazines, and television. One of the articles was: http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/3-4/415. The author states that female athletics are barely covered in the media. He thinks that the media is essentially sending a message that woman's sports aren't very important. The lack of media attention leads to lack of financial sponsors because companies typically want to invest in teams that are featured regularly on television and in magazines. An example of the under-representation is,a 1998 study showed that 90.2 percent of sports-related shows on BBC1 covered men’s events. It also found that the average length of coverage of women’s sports on BBC1 was significantly shorter than for men’s sports (17 minutes versus 42 minutes) (2).
Since most of the studies I found were a little bit outdated, I decided to go to the Dartmouth Bookstore to look at Sports Illustrated. I counted the number of males and females featured in this week's issue of the magazine. Here's what I found:
All of the women that were featured only had short paragraphs written about them, and none of them were full length features. All of the photographs of the female athletes portray them in athletic situations and not "sexualized positions".
None of these findings surprised me because I have always been aware that male athletic events have more viewers. Other than the Olympics I have never watched a female sporting event . I also understand that the readership of Sports Illustrated is primarily male, so financially it would make sense for them include females in a more sexual light. But I wonder if this will ever change. What would happen if BBC1 covered more female sporting events? I understand that initially spectators would be angry, and BBC1 would lose money. But would more people eventually begin to tune into female sporting events? If Sports Illustrated featured more female athletes, would it lead to more interest in woman's athletics? If magazines didn't feature sexualized images of female athletes and instead featured photographs of them in athletic situations, would people eventually take female athletes more seriously? I really don't know the answer to any of these questions. But I do know that the media plays a large role in how society views different types of people. I think that the media potentially has the power to make female and male athletics more equal.
Sources
(1)http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Participation/123/27%20Year%20Study%20Shows%20Progression%20of%20Women%20in%20College%20Athletics.aspx
(2)http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/3-4/415
On June 23,1972, Title IX was enacted. It emphasized equal opportunity for men and women in sports. Today, Dartmouth and most other colleges abide by Title 9.There are 34 varsity sports teams at Dartmouth- 16 female, 16 male, and 2 co-ed. Schools around the country are dedicated to making sure that female and male athletic teams receive equal funding.
Clearly female athletics have progressed significantly since Title 9 was enacted. But in American society today, are male and female athletes viewed as equals?
After doing a bit of research, I realized that a lot of people were wondering the same thing. A Google scholar search provided me with a bunch of different scholarly articles about how female athletes are represented in magazines and other forms of media. I found a really interesting blog: http://nicolemlavoi.com, which is entirely devoted to issues with how the media represents women athlete. I found one of her posts to be particularly interesting, she talked about how in 2007, only 3.6% of the covers of Sports Illustrated featured a female athlete.
The author of the blog then went on to talk about how when females are featured in sports magazines they typically pose in "sexualized positions" that accentuate their femininity. In her post she included a video clip that's pretty interesting and highlights her main points: http://www.kare11.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=65784301001#/Lindsey+Vonn+poses+for+Sports+Illustrated+swimsuit+issue/65784301001.
There have been a lot of academic studies that show that women athletes are underrepresented in newspapers,magazines, and television. One of the articles was: http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/3-4/415. The author states that female athletics are barely covered in the media. He thinks that the media is essentially sending a message that woman's sports aren't very important. The lack of media attention leads to lack of financial sponsors because companies typically want to invest in teams that are featured regularly on television and in magazines. An example of the under-representation is,a 1998 study showed that 90.2 percent of sports-related shows on BBC1 covered men’s events. It also found that the average length of coverage of women’s sports on BBC1 was significantly shorter than for men’s sports (17 minutes versus 42 minutes) (2).
Since most of the studies I found were a little bit outdated, I decided to go to the Dartmouth Bookstore to look at Sports Illustrated. I counted the number of males and females featured in this week's issue of the magazine. Here's what I found:
All of the women that were featured only had short paragraphs written about them, and none of them were full length features. All of the photographs of the female athletes portray them in athletic situations and not "sexualized positions".
None of these findings surprised me because I have always been aware that male athletic events have more viewers. Other than the Olympics I have never watched a female sporting event . I also understand that the readership of Sports Illustrated is primarily male, so financially it would make sense for them include females in a more sexual light. But I wonder if this will ever change. What would happen if BBC1 covered more female sporting events? I understand that initially spectators would be angry, and BBC1 would lose money. But would more people eventually begin to tune into female sporting events? If Sports Illustrated featured more female athletes, would it lead to more interest in woman's athletics? If magazines didn't feature sexualized images of female athletes and instead featured photographs of them in athletic situations, would people eventually take female athletes more seriously? I really don't know the answer to any of these questions. But I do know that the media plays a large role in how society views different types of people. I think that the media potentially has the power to make female and male athletics more equal.
Sources
(1)http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Participation/123/27%20Year%20Study%20Shows%20Progression%20of%20Women%20in%20College%20Athletics.aspx
(2)http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/3-4/415
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Gone Fishing!
Hey, I am not posting a blog this week. I am brainstorming ideas for future blog posts.
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