Misogyny in Sports Media

If you can name more famous female athletes than famous male athletes you are anomaly. You probably also don't watch television or read the newspaper. A lot of this is probably due to the patriarchal trend in recent history. Who am I kidding? In almost all history. Since Elizabeth Cady Stanton went to a tea party in 1848 women have been trying to equalize this kind of thing.

So it is really needless to say that when I was working on a post about the greatest female athlete of all time I was shocked and disgusted that when I did a search for the greatest player in the history of the WNBA my search engine asked me if I wasn't confused and meant to search for the greatest player in the NBA.

Then I made the mistake of searching for a picture of IndyCar driver Danica Patrick. WOW. I thought I could find a picture of her in her racing suit (I'm sure there is a technical term for that) but it was much, much easier to find a picture of her in a bikini. I was so mortified that I wrote a whole post about it over on Draft Day Suit. Don't even get me started on Anna Kournikova.

Look, I think there is value in a woman embracing her sexuality, but it is very difficult for me to take an athlete seriously when she is doing this or this or this.

I suppose it is partially natural. These women athletes are in great shape. They spend a lot of time training and their bodies look great. I'm sure that all the magazines and websites are clamoring for slutty pictures of them to sell more ads. I'm sure they get paid pretty well for the photos too, but how are we going to fix the problem of people taking women's sports (maybe not tennis, but certainly basketball and golf) seriously.

Comments

your post is food for thought

You are raising an excellent issue here, and it is something that has bother me for a long time. I have written on my own blog a little about women and sport and I hope to do more. If it were just a matter of showing off bodies in great shape, the SI Swim issue, for example, would have a much different look to it (ie they'd be athletes and would be both men and women). My theory is that the sexualization of women in sport has more to do with the idea that sexualized women's bodies are the only ones that are authentically "feminine" in our culture. The female body that is athletic can be threatening--she can invoke violence or protect herself on her own and from a man's advances--both physically and ideologically. Sexualizing her, then "put her back in her place" as sex object, subject to visual possession and consumption, where she belongs.

Submitted by lindabeth on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 13:20

Danica vs. Hannah Montana

PunditGirl is just starting to really get into sports. As the mother of an eight-year-old girl I am THRILLED! And she wants to learn more about women athletes. So is it more dangerous for her to find out about photos like these or let her keep watching Hannah Montana?

PunditMom, Contributing Editor, Politics & News

Submitted by PunditMom on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 14:58

Interesting, too, how we want them to act
like men...

I hear all the time, "Women's basketball is more fundamentally sound, but it's just not as exciting as men's basketball."

So to be valid in sports, women have to act like men? It's a classic damned-it-you-damned-if-you-don't issue. To be taken seriously you have to act like men, but if you don't you're not valid in sports. To be noticed and make money, you have to take your clothes off and cater to male desires (but you're still not taken seriously as an athlete).

Submitted by MMarquit on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 20:45

great post

Hi Sarah-

I love your post, and you have some very valid points. I help promote female action sports and it is a bummer to think of of us having to pose half naked to get noticed...

Let's stay connected.

www.gwaveconsulting.com

Submitted by melncali on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 21:44

Interesting subject

I found this post to be very interesting. It made me think about famous women athletes myself, and well, I just can't name that many.

I am an athletic girl and I really enjoy watching sports, but honestly I usually don't watch women's sports. It's not that I find them less entertaining, but that they get less exposure. If I want to watch a women's sport, I have to flip through the many different ESPN channels. But men's sports dominate the athletic world. In fact, I bet a lot of people don't even know that the WNBA exists. It is a shame that women's sports don't get more attention, because those women are wonderful athletes too.

As, for Danica Patrick, I hope she continues to race well in a world dominated by men. How many people can name a professional woman driver? I can only name a couple, and I watch racing all the time. Her "racy" pictures (no pun intended), however, are likely part of what got her into racing. Like it or not, you can bet that her pictures caught somebody's eye in the racing world, and maybe even opened the door for her to race. But now she is racing full-time and just got her first victory. I hope she continues to show people that she is indeed a good racer. Maybe one day there will be more pictures of her in her race suit, than ones of her in her birthday suit.

Submitted by countrygirl on Thu, 04/24/2008 - 13:52