Sport and Gender

By Bradley Wright

This week’s issue of ESPN magazine featured the star basketball player Candace Parker, and when I saw the cover photograph, I chuckled, but when I read the article, I rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation.

You see, I had recently been writing a lecture on content analysis for my social research methods class, and I was looking for a video example to illustrate the power of this technique. With content analysis, we identify existing documents, photographs, or other forms of data, and we analyze them much the same way we would other forms of data, e.g., survey data or participant observation. In cruising around the internet, I found a presentation by Mediaed.org entitled Playing Unfair: The Media Image of the Female Athlete. It’s a clip from a longer film in which various experts subject talk about how female athletes are presented in the media.

The experts on this topic (and I am not one of them) identified several themes in the media presentation of female athletes. These representations tend to deemphasize the women’s athleticism by portraying them in street clothes or in everyday activities; in contrast, male athletes are more often portrayed in their uniform, performing their sport.

The representations also emphasize the women’s sexuality more so than men’s, so pictures and text about the women are more likely to highlight their sexual features. They emphasize the women’s heterosexuality to counteract stereotypes of female athletes as lesbians. Pictures of them often include a boyfriend, husband, or children. Finally, female athletes receive far less media coverage than do their male counterparts.

Okay, back to Candace Parker. I work at the University of Connecticut, which is a perennial powerhouse in women’s basketball. (At this point, you should be cheering U-C-O-N-N). Candace Parker, unfortunately, attended our archrival, Tennessee, where she led them to two national championships. She’s now gone pro in the WNBA, and in her first year she was both rookie-of-the-year and player-of-the-year. She even dunks the basketball! In short, Candace is perhaps the best women to ever play the game.

ESPN magazine wants to feature her on its cover, and which picture do they choose? As you can see, it’s a picture that epitomizes the sociological analysis of women in sports. Candace is shown in a white dress, not a basketball uniform or playing basketball. The lighting and make-up are glamorous, and she’s pregnant—holding her hands on her womb to emphasize it. This is when I laughed—a perfect illustration of what the sociologists in the video spoke of.

As I thought about this image of Parker, I realized perhaps ESPN magazine routinely portrayed athletes in everyday life, and I had just happen to notice this week’s issue with a woman on the cover. So, I looked up the covers of the last five issues of the magazine, and four of the five had men in uniforms doing something related to their sports. The fifth had a male basketball player in street clothes, but he was dunking a basketball.

Hm-m-m-m, maybe this is an ESPN magazine thing, so I looked up recent covers of Sports Illustrated--again all men, in uniforms, performing their sports except for one cover featuring a woman. The swimsuit issue.

Then I read the article about Candace Parker, and this is when I started rolling my eyes. Here are its opening lines:

THE SELLING OF CANDACE PARKER

She's the total package: your sister's pal, your brother's prom date, supermom-to-be. She's also an MVP—of a league few watch. So can Candace Parker be the female Jordan? Lots of folks are banking on it.
Candace Parker is beautiful. Breathtaking, really, with flawless skin, endless legs and a C cup she is proud of but never flaunts. She is also the best at what she does, a record-setter, a rule-breaker, a redefiner.

Can you imagine any mainstream magazine taking a similar approach to a male athlete? “Baseball player Sidd Finch is a hunk. A complete hunk, really, with chiseled features, rippling biceps, and a larger-than-average penis that he is proud of but never flaunts.” Ah, I don’t think so. (By the way, you get extra credit if you recognize the name of the player.)

Content analysis has various advantages. It’s a way to study existing documents and portrayals in society. It’s usually less work than collecting survey, interview or observation data. It can be analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

It has its disadvantages too, but more than anything, after looking at these articles, I’m just depressed about the media’s portrayal of women athletes.

Comments

[Stefani]

I'm learning about gender differences in my sociology class and this article was a great example of how media portrays males and females differently. It's so offensive that they don't show the actual sports side of a female athlete. I personally wouldn't want to read about how hot a female basketball player is. I'd rather read facts like with the males.

[Kirstin]

The type of attention female athletes get is the wrong type of attention. I'm not very much into sports, but I do notice how unusual the female on a cover of a sports magazine looks. Sometimes they do not even look like the true athletes they are, but in fact they are in revealing clothes showing themselves off to be feminine or posing with their husband, etc. This is a type of sexism and it is not acceptable. Female athletes should be allowed the same type of respect that men do. They should be applauded for their awards and success, not how nice their butt looks in short shorts.

[David Williams]

After I read this posting about sports and gender, all I could do was agree with Bradley Wright. Men are potrayed on magazine covers as athletic individuals playing their sports with some type of uniform on while women are shown to be more feminine and less active with no uniform on. I believe that even though the more feminine magazine covers tends to sell more, they should show female athletes to be more active because they work just as hard as males to get their athlete status up to. And about the Canadace Parker cover, why didn't they show her dunking or in her basketball clothes? The media potrayal of female athletes is horrible and people should act upon this problem because female athletes deserve as much respect as male athletes.

[deadale]

great article, very interesting video,
i see it really has a strong point.. and i agree.

[Daniel Rodriguez]

I have always been amazed at how a single distinguishing factor such as a person's gender can completely change how society in general portrays someone. Of course, I found your obeservations regarding covers of sports magazines to be quite interesting, but what you were just talking about now reminds me of something else that involves a lot of "gender talk" - education. You will be amazed at how something as simple as whether you are male or female can basically control the choices you make when it comes to school-related topics like choosing classes or choosing a certain degree to pursue at a university.

In my opinion, the United States is one of the most "gender-conscious" countries today, and sometimes that can turn out to be a problem!

[Melissa]

I also am a women who has played sports throughout high school and college and find that this issue needs to be addressed. Women are most certainly treated different than men in the world of sports. Women athletes accomplish just as much as male athletes and receive very little recognition. For example, in the golf world everyone has heard of Tiger Woods, but Annika Sorentam, the best female golfer's name is hardly recognizable. This is pathetic.

[surf lessons santa monica]

I agree with Lei Hei, women's figures sell more than the male figure.

[Matt]

This treatment of women athletes is unacceptable. They deserve to be recognized for their abilities instead of their body. If men are always pictured in their uniform playing their sport and women are dressed up, you think that might be a little unfair? I do. Give women a chance to be professional athletes instead of sex figures.

[Samantha Hill]

You know I've seen all the magazines, and read news articles about famous women atheletes, and it didn't sink in till now that they do that to women. You could be the best womens basketball player on earth, but I bet if you're not gorgeous, you will not be on the cover of 'Sports Illustrated' and that is just stupid. Women are getting attention, but not for the reasons they should. For example, all the Magazine covers being Males, except for the swimsuit addition?! That's just not right.

[Aleksis]

I really appreciate this article. I think it's time we educated the public about this type of analyzation of women. We fought so hard to even have a womens league, and still it is deemphasized.

[Mariah]

I always noticed the difference in the way women are treated while playing sports and the way men are treated. Some women are just as good as men at a sport, some worse, and some better. It doesn't matter boy, or girl, all athletes should get the same recognition and the same attention. Just because on the cover of a magazine a girl athlete is pregnant and wearing a dress, doesn't mean she's any less of an athlete. She's a girl, what do you expect? Just because she plays sports doesn't mean she has to give up being a girl.

[Kristen]

I am a sociology student reading about how genders are treated differently and will never really be considered equal, and I never realized what you have pointed out but it's true! Magazines talk all about the way female athletes look and portray themselves, but when they talk about male athletes they just talk stats. It would seem weird if they talked all about how the male looked, so why does it not seem weird when they talk about female athletes this way? Do they talk about them this way just because it is mostly males that read these magazines? This was just another example of how the genders are treated differently.

[Kristie]

In my sociology class, we learned about sexism and how women were not accepted in the same ways as men, and are still in the process of getting there. This article, in my opinion, really highlights the sexism aspect in media. It just doesn't make sense that a woman athlete is on the cover of ESPN, but looks nothing like an athlete. She looks like a typical expecting housewife. I think this is disrespectful, too, because it doesn't focus on her accomplishments, but rather tries to direct attention to her femininity. I just think that should be saved for a different magazine, not a sports one.

[Sirah]

Gender inequality has been a part of socities for generations. Sure women are getting a little credit for their achievments, but as this article shows they are not being portrayed in the same light as men. Women are still used as the sex symbol to attract attention. Even the stuff that women have to wear while playing sports shows a difference. In men's volleyball they wear gym shorts, but when in women's volleyballthey are expected to wear spandex. In tennis again men wear shorts, women wear skorts. Maybe it is to show their feminicity, but it sure isn't for reasons of practicality.

[Rachel]

I think the inequalities in media coverage for male and female athletes are unfortunate. We encountered a problem with men's vs women's sports at my high school. The state changed the season schedule so that instead of running during opposite seasons, men's and women's basketball competes during the same season. Many, many people in the community were upset because Friday nights were no longer reserved for Men's basketball and 'Snowcoming' now included women players. I thought it was more an instance of sexism than a conflict of tradition.

[Sam]

I agree with the post written earlier about why the media advertises women athletes they way they do. They do it for marketing; when a women is in uniform, she isn't wearing an outfit that fits her curves, she is wearing the outfit that is most appropriate to that sport. In my experience, men would rather look at a woman in a bikini than watch her play sports. A lot of men I know still think "women can't play sports." It's quite depressing.

[Chelsea Johnson]

It is very unfortunate that while male players are seen as perfection with just the list of their career accomplishments, and females, in order to be "well-rounded" are expected to be sexually appealing and successful.

It's like they have to uphold a lot more to be a superstar... Almost like they've already been set up for failure...

One must be a athlete, a good one actually, a mom, beautiful, bib breasts, perfect teeth, grace, strength, weakness, and to top it all off, a stunning sense of style... at all times.

[du doan bong da]

I think it is sad and not very surprising about the media's portrayal of women. Even though women are now ending up in more positions once controlled by men, I still believe that there will always be a part of us that see women more as inferior sex objects than true equals...

[Kate Saunders]

Thanks for speaking on the gender issues. We have to start from somewhere for the matters to be addressed. If you have a moment come visit http://LimeActiveWear.com for women’s athletic clothing.

[McKenzie]

I think you have an excellent point. Women are not given the same opportunities that men are when it comes to sports. The same thing happens in schools. The all male football team, and the baseball team, and the lacross team are given more attention than any of the girls sports. Our principal has even said in announcements the basketball team had a hard loss to whomever last night, and the GIRLS basketball team beat whoever last night. The boys team IS the basketball team. The girls team is just another school team. They aren't quite as important. That's what the message comes off as. My point is, not only does Sports Illustrated do this, but many schools do it as well.

[Sexy Black Women]

Female athlete have a hard time. They have a very small fan base and are rarely seen as sex symbols. If they are seen as sex symbols, then their play is overlooked.

[Allison]

I think this is both a clever marketing ploy from ESPN and the way they think that society wants to view female athletes. A sexy, scantily-clad covergirl will sell magazines. I completely agree with what the author was saying about how the media emphasizes female athlete's sexuality instead of focusing on the sport they play. It shows that women still have a long way to go in sports.

[Madison]

Great blog! I also think that women are being portrayed differently than men in the sports magazines. I think that people pay attention to male sports way more than they do to women. That is dumb because women are just as good of atheletes as men so they should be portrayed that way.

[Makenzie]

Your article is a very good example of sexism. I went and noticed some of my fathers magazines and saw they same things you described in them. The women are always brought back to the "women" role instead of having their talents show cased like the men in the sports industry.