How I see it

Gender equality in sports media has been always a big problem as women have been used in sports media and broadcasting more as a way to make the men’s experience more pleasurable. Women were meant as distraction during half time ( cheerleaders , dancers etc. ) or just as a ‘goofy’ player interviewer. Its quite baffling to see the studies that were done by the Birmingham University that showed that only about 3,5% of articles in any sports newspaper were related to the women’s sports. We should be quite alarmed at this number as its quite obviously not equal but mostly how drastically low it is ( the fact that even during Olympic games which were represented by most women in history in 2012 still the number of articles was only about 4,5% of all). Media use the excuse that its simply the fact that viewers are not interested in these sports which is not true as social media says otherwise. During the women’s FIFA world cup final in 2011 this event was actually the most tweeted event in history at that time. There has been increase in interest in womens sports of late and its surprising to see that the media has not realize this trend and still mostly maintains very old school with the way they represent womens sports. Argument can be made that its simply also based on the quality of athletes but to counter that id say its more based on the funding that each sports receive. To take NBA and WNBA in contrast , the male league is taken as place gladiators at top of their powers fight in these historic events , soaring through skies to dunk the ball and win these spectacles of game , while the WNBA barely gets any coverage and is widely mocked even in general media.

To fight this gender bias we must push for successful sports reporters such as Doris Burke in NBA to get the meaningful broadcasting jobs that can provide in depth analysis and can make the broadcasting more colorful and remove many of these ”fossils” that have been reporting on sports since 70s and still have these old views where women are represented as objects for male pleasure , and rather diversify the sports media and move into 21st century like rest of the world. There is argument to be had that for example womens pay is still not equal to male for same kind of job ( women make 93 cents to each dollar that men make in same job in US ) but its quite substantially higher than the amount of reporting done on women sports. It is surprising that in multi billion business such as sports this quite obvious gender inequality is being allowed and easily overlooked by the general public.

Its good to see atleast USA sports broadcasts are pushing more female broadcasters and reporters in their broadcasts and are trying to balance the field atleast some while for example football in England and Europe is still being very traditional and not wanting to break the traditions. Its important for us as viewers trying to put pressure on the media for them to become modern and really fight for gender equality at their workplace and for us as viewers to let them know that we are interested in womens sports and in more female broadcasters.

Citations :

The impact of Keys and Gray’s sexism scandal. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theawayend.net/component/content/article/50-archive/570-the-impact-of-keys-and-grays-sexism-scandal

Article – Women in Sportscasting: A Brief History, by Lou Schwartz. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.americansportscastersonline.com/womeninsportscasting.html

(n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theawayend.net/compohttp://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/magic-johnson-doris-burke-espn-nba-countdown-analyst-174458171–nba.htmlnent/content/article/50-archive/570-the-impact-of-keys-and-grays-sexism-scandal

It’s Time For Sports Broadcasting To Stop Relegating Women to Sideline Eye Candy (Forbes)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/annedoyle/2013/01/21/its-time-for-sports-broadcasting-to-stop-relegating-women-to-sideline-eye-candy/

(n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university

n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university

The London 2012 Olympics – a gender equality audit. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://www.playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2013/the-london-2012-olympics-a-gender-equality-audit/