Women's+Sport+-+Clothes+off,+blinkers+on

Name: Michael Smith Student Number: n8087041 Tutor: Sophie Miller Time: 2pm - 3pm

**WOMEN'S SPORT - CLOTHES OFF, BLINKERS ON**

//**"That's what they sell . . . They want to look good, they pay attention to their looks and everything."**////**Michael Stich (German tennis player, 1991 Wimbledon Champion)**//


 * ARTEFACT **

This is an image from the Sydney Morning Herald on June 9th, 2010. It is from an article entitled “TV perv-fest puts blinkers on women’s sport”. The image is of players from the United States’ Lingerie Football League, which, according to NBC Sports’ Rick Chandler, is “the fastest growing pro-sports league in the nation”. The Lingerie Football League was created in 2009 and came from a Super Bowl halftime special called the Lingerie Bowl. It is a full contact women’s football based on the game of American Gridiron Football, and requires that women compete wearing only bras, panties and their protective gear.

This image is an example of how women are commonly cast in the sporting world, primarily a sex symbol, secondly an athlete (Garrett, 2004). Images such as this, and quotes from people such as Michael Stich in his reference to women’s tennis players where he calls them ‘performers’ rather than using the word ‘athlete’, promote the ideas of women the sporting world has constructed for us, which is that they are sexual objects, or selling sex.


 * PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE **

The idea that female athletes are there to sell sex first and play sport second creates a very narrow minded, ‘blinkers on’ type of view on women in the sporting arena (Pringle & Hickey, 2010). This type of view could lead to a variety of public health issues from mental and emotional illnesses in women who feel they needn’t bother with sports if they’re not physically attractive (Coy, 2009), to things like physical or sexual assault, or abuse of women who are primarily cast as sex objects (Pringle & Hickey, 2010). Typically, sport has always been a man’s domain and is associated with masculine qualities (Houlihan, 2008), therefore to adhere to traditional gender roles athletic females are forced into being represented as a ‘seductress’ or ‘sex symbol’ so as not to appear too masculine.


 * LITERATURE REVIEW **

Up until the mid 1900’s there were still very few women participating in sport compared to men. This was for a variety of reasons such as, the idea that trying to run faster, throw further or jump higher was too much of a masculine activity (Pringle, 2010), as well as an early idea that women should be home looking after the family and not wasting time on individual pursuits (Coy, 2009).

These days, females have more of an even level of participation in physical activity, especially in Australia. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2009) the levels of men and women participating in physical activity are equal, however the majority of women take part in non-competitive and leisure sports as opposed to organised competitions. This again comes back to the traditional belief that the competitive nature of sports is a masculine trait and not only do most women not want to be seen as overtly masculine (Coy, 2009).

The recent achievements of Australia’s female athletes are on par with males. The ABS (2010) reported that female participation in sport has increased rapidly in the last 3 decades, due largely to achievements such as – the Australian Olympic Squad which between 1948 and 1996 was made up of 23% female athletes, who returned with 38% of Australia’s medals, and specifically the 1956 Olympic team which consisted of 44 women who won seven gold medals, two silver and two bronze while the 243 men in the team could only manage six gold, six silver and eleven bronze. The trend of Australian women enjoying success in sport is continuing as recently as this year with Samantha Stosur winning the US open and enjoying a world number 6 ranking. Australia’s top ranked male tennis player is Bernard Tomic, ranked no. 42 in the world. Unfortunately this dominance has not seen an increased value put on women’s sport, either in the media or financially via things like sponsorships and increased ticket prices.

Women’s sport has long struggled to gain any respect or recognition in the public eye and this is evident in the amount of time dedicated to women’s sport in the media. Recent ABS statistics show that less than 10% of sportscasting time on television is devoted to women’s sport. When pay TV is included, the total time is less than 2%. Magazines and newspapers did not fare much better. Cooky, Wachs, Messner and Dworkin (2010) found that in the US, between 3-8% of news and television time devoted to sport is given to women’s sport, and the coverage often trivialises the athlete’s efforts and is committed to portraying a sexual athletic appearance. When these sexual images are shown to males, they invoke the same feelings as when they are shown images of sexualised models, that women are objects meant to be evaluated on their physical looks rather than achievements (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). These same images have been shown to have negative effects on females, with the huge number of these images in the media being linked with eating disorders and self-confidence issues amongst some women and other feeling less inclined to participate in sport for fear that they don’t look attractive enough to be viewed in that light by boys, or even other girls (Daniels & Wartena, 2011; Wanneberg, 2011; Mercurio & Rima, 2011). Evidently, to get ahead in the sporting world women must first overcome the barrier of being seen as too masculine (Pringle & Hickey, 2010; Funk & Werhun, 2011) and then present themselves in a sexual manner to gain recognition and sponsorship rather than rely on their achievements alone (Daniels & Wartena, 2011; Wanneberg, 2011; Cooky et al., 2010). So, why is sporting success both achieved and measured differently for men and women?

There is literature supporting the idea that men and women will never be equal in sport for physiological reasons. Simply put, the 10 fastest men in the world will always beat the fastest woman in the world, so regardless of where in the top 10 they finish they are more highly regarded than their female counterparts (Thibault et al., 2010). Thibault et al. also concluded that because of the biological differences between men and women, that the gender gap in athletic performance of all conclusively measurable events has not been narrowed and remained steady since 1983, she also claims that world record and championship winning performances of a particular gender have a clearly predictable range if the performance of the other gender is known. This is just one, but a common train of thought among society as well (Cooky et al., 2010, Coy, 2009) that suggests that men garner more recognition, fame and financial reward simply because of the supply and demand principle. Demand is for faster games, harder hits and bigger jumps, therefore a cycle is created whereby live spectatorship and media coverage of men’s sport goes up, ticket prices can be raised because organisations know the public will pay, merchandise sales go up due to increased exposure, the athlete’s are paid more for raising more money, they can then spend more time and resources on improving their game, further increasing demand for it and thus, keeping the discrepancy alive (Cooky et al., 2010).


 * SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS **

This sad state of affairs affects primarily women, though a growing number of men are dissatisfied with the conditions as well (Pringle & Hickey, 2010; Coy, 2009) and would prefer a female partner who was healthy, strong and fit. A woman who has these traits and yet retains her feminine look appears physically to be the perfect woman (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). A popular bodybuilding and fitness website, [|www.cutandjacked.com] has popularised a slogan for its female athletes and followers that ‘strong is the new skinny’, and have produced numerous motivational pictures with this slogan accompanying pictures of strong women, lifting, pushing and pulling various weights. This has coincided with an increase in the number of women participating in gym and fitness type activities (ABS, 2010; Funk & Werhun, 2011) and may be the beginning of a social trend that at least sees women participating equally across a full range of sports rather than adhering to sports that are traditionally ‘women’s sports’.

As well as there always being this line that has divided men’s sports from women’s sports, telling each gender what they should be playing or competing in, there has always been a barrier stopping many women working in other roles in sports alongside the athletes (Welch & Sigelman, 2007; Grubb & Billiot, 2010). Coaching and sportscasting are two such roles, in particular the broadcast area of sports where up until recently there have been very few women. Commonly in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s when a woman did receive a job broadcasting sport, it was because of her appearance rather than a knowledge of sport (Grubb & Billiot, 2010) such as Pauline Frederick and Nancy Dickerson in the 50’s and 60’s and Phyllis George in the mid 1970’s. This presents an ongoing challenge to women today who look to follow their passion for the multi-billion dollar industry that is professional sport, only to find out that a pretty face and fit body are more important for the role than knowledge of the game.

Discussion of these points needs to take place and strategies need to be created to at least begin to balance out these differences. Currently the instance of confidence issues among women are too high (Gooden, Van Denburg, Murnen & Smolak, 2011; Coy, 2009) and is important for women as well as men to feel that a particular industry or career path is not outside the bounds of the capabilities of their gender (Pringle & Hickey, 2010).


 * ARTEFACT ANALYSIS AND LEARNING PERCEPTIONS **

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: left;">I would like to say that this study has opened my eyes to problems that women face in the world of sport. Unfortunately, having worked in the fitness industry for 7 years I have seen a bit of it already. The lingerie football league which my artefact is from is something I was aware of through being an NFL fan. The smart person would know there is something wrong when a football fan doesn’t enjoy watching women try to play it in their bras and panties, and I feel quite sad that for women to gain recognition for playing football they need to do it in their underwear. I can also speak from time working in the WNBL, did those girls work as hard as the men across town at the Bullets? Yes. Were they as good? No, and they may not ever be, in fact true equality in sport may never be reached because it would require abolition of splitting the genders for competition and women will most likely never be able to compete with men (Thibault et al., 2010) but the fact remains that something needs to change.

**REFERENCES**

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: left;">Australian Bureau of Statistics Catalogue 4177.0: //Participation in Sport and Physical Activities// 2009/2010

Australian Bureau of statistics (2009) Feature Article Three: Women in Sport. Retreived from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS

Cooky, C., Wachs, F.L., Messner, M., Dworkin, S.L. (2010) It's not about the game: Don Imus, race, class, gender and sexuality in contemporary media. //Sociology of Sport Journal, 27// p.139-159

Coy, M. (2009) Milkshakes, ladylumps and growing up to want boobies: How the sexualisation of popular culture limits girls horizons. //Child Abuse Review, 18// p.372-383

Daniels, E.A, Wartena, H. (2011) Athlete or sex symbol: What boys think of media representations of female athletes. //Sex Roles, 65// p.566-579 doi: 10.1007/s11199-011-9959-7

Funk, L.C., Werhun, C.D., (2011) "You're such a girl!" The psychological drain of gender-role harrassment of men. //Sex Roles, 65// p.13-22 doi: 10.1007/s11199-011-9948-x

Garret, R. (2004) Negotiating a physical identity: Girls, bodies and physical education. //Journal of Sport, Education and Society, 9//(2) p.223-237

Goodin, S.M., Van Denburg, A., Murnen, S.K., Smolak, L. (2011) "Putting on" sexyness: A content analysis of the presence of sexualising characteristics of girls clothing. //Sex Roles, 65// p.1-12

Grubb, M.V., Billiot, T. (2010) Women sportscasters: Navigating a masculine domain. //Journal of Gender Studies, 19//(1) p.87-93

Houlihan, B. (2008) //Sport and Society: A Student Introduction//, Second Edition, Sage Publications: London

Pringle, R.G., Hickey, C. (2010) Negotiating masculinities via the moral problemisation of sport. //Sociology of Sport Journal, 27// p.115-138

Thibault, V., Guillame, M., Berthelot, G., El Helou, N., Schaal, K., Quinquis, L., ...Toussaint, J.F. (2010) Women and men in sport performance: The gender gap has not evolved since 1983. //Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 9// p.214-223

Wanneberg, P.L. (2011) The sexualisation of sport: A gender analysis of Sweidish elite sport from 1967 to the present day. //European Journal of Women's Studies, 18//(3) p.265-278

Welch, S., Sigelman, L. (2007) Who's calling the shots: Women coaches in division 1 women's sports. //Social Science Quarterly, 88//(5) p.1415-1434

It's really scary to think about all the technology young people have at their disposal now. Work like this really makes me think about what it would be like to be at school right about now. I didn't have much compared to what it's like now, I got my first phone at 17, never did much on the internet until I first got cable at 19, and didn't have facebook until I was 22, but I have younger cousins who have had all of that stuff since they were 12 and I've seen what their facebook post and text message habits are like. Now I have a 5 month old daughter myself and she's already fixated by the screen whenever she sees our tv or phones. It makes me worry about what things will be like for her growing up. ||
 * || [|wordsmith85] just now

Hi, really nice work on your wiki. I also used a picture from LFL. I'm a massive gridiron fan and honestly I can't believe LFL is a real thing...I'm a heterosexual male and I can't even watch it. I remember my high school days where the girls never wanted to play sports and I thought it was really sad the reasons they had for not wanting to participate with us (they weren't good enough, didn't look hot enough in sports gear, thought they wouldn't get a fair go) granted one or two of the girls were just lazy but I could never understand why they didn't want to get out and just blow off some steam from other school related stress. Now I have a 5 month old daughter and I plan on encouraging her to be physically active her whole life and hopefully when she's older she'll see things a bit differently. By the way nice point about women being banned from competing in sports in certain cultures, that's something I completely missed!! ||
 * || [|wordsmith85] just now