Women Sports in Media

I am not a women who would normally raise a big fuss about women and Title IX and I am not much of a feminist, but it is interesting to me how people portray women and see women in sports. I found a lot of information about how women are seen and why they are seen that way. It also fascinates me as to how women would agree to show themselves in a sexual light for an audience. I would love to see more women who love sports and want to portray themselves as sports objects. This would let everyone know that women can be seen as sports objects just like men.

For this blog, I chose to write about women and sports media. Women in sports is becoming a large controversy, if you will. It has changed a lot from before until now and even now is changing as well. Earlier in the media world, women were not portrayed in sports as much as men. When they were covered in media, they were portrayed as sports objects. Nowadays, you will find more images of women in sports as more sexual.

Women are trying to make women's sports about women's sports, not about the sex object that some portray in the images in magazines, ads, and other forms of media. But, there still are some women who will take the pictures or do the ads that portray women as sexual objects. There were many articles I read where women changed or altered their appearance, or others altered their appearance, to make them appeal more to the male audience. Some examples are below.

Lindsey Vonn posed for a picture for the cover of Sports Illustrated. Many thought it was a more sexual pose than what a male skier would be portrayed. Some stated that this was a skier position, just enhanced slightly. Really, it is probably a matter of opinion.

Another example would be when Greta Van Susteren moved to Fox broadcasting in 2002. She decided to get a makeover that changed her looks as well as her face. Robin Gerber notes that, "Before her surgery, Van Susteren had been an increasingly visible beacon projecting the hope that women had made progress. You believed that she had made it in television because she was so darn smart, clearly the best legal analyst on the air." However, her surgery symbolizes what many analysts have argued for decades: that the way a woman looks is far more important than what she has to say. (Media Awareness Network)

Although there are negatives to women in sports media, there are also positives as well. There are a lot of pictures and ads out there now that portray women as athletes and show that it doesn't always take a skinny women that is the portrayal of the "image" to portray women in sports. You see more pictures of women as athletes. The form of the body and the look in the face. There are also many places out there that are trying to make sure that women are not shown as sexual objects.

Some articles are below that show the good, the bad, and the ugly of women in sports media. There are sites that are trying to portray women as sports objects, then there are others that are not. Check out these articles and let me know what you think.

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Media-and-Publicity/D/DisEmpowering-Images--Media-Representations-of-Women-in-Sport.aspx

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Media-and-Publicity/M/Media--Images-and-Words-In-Womens-Sports-The-Foundation-Position.aspx

http://sportsmediasociety.blogspot.com/2009/11/reebok-to-women-get-body-that-men-want.html

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/where-the-women-are

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_coverage.cfm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/lindsey-vonn-sports-illus_n_450438.html

Below, you will also see some images that were referenced in my blog and some examples of how well women are portrayed in sports media as well as women who have been portrayed as sexual objects to gain media coverage.