What+are+you+woman;+a+pornstar+or+an+athlete?

Name: Rebecca Cottrell Student ID: n8296791 Tutor: Emily Mann

– Ann-Marie Nenzell (athlete), 2011
media type="youtube" key="y8uqqk2dlXQ" height="315" width="420"


 * Artefact Analysis**

The YouTube clip titled “Olympic Beach Volleyball Girls” is a montage of videos featuring women volleyball players in bikinis. These women are elite female beach volleyball players from all around the world playing the sport of their profession. The montage includes angles mainly from a close up of their rear view and rarely shows any of the Olympians faces with quite a sexual song as a backdrop.


 * Public Health Issue**

Throughout history, sport has always been a ‘mans world’ and will always be associated with masculinity (Wanneberg, 2011). From the end of the 1960’s until the present day, women have been subdued to objectification and pornification in the media. While women are increasingly becoming a larger part of elite sport, it was established as a male institution and women are not, and may never be, depicted in the same way as men (Wanneberg, 2011).

This poses a large public health issue in society today where women athletes are being demoralized and used as sex objects in the media. This is not only inviting sexism into the culture of Australia, but also the rest of the world. Daniels & Wartena (2011) have found that adolescent boys are responding to these media campaigns by objectifying female athletes, and in turn resulted in the involvement from adolescent girls in school sport dropping significantly (Holland & Oglesby, 1979). Much research has been demonstrated on younger adolescent girls who view elite athletic women as role models. However, they also are aware of the objectification present in a sexualized way in which the athletes are portrayed (Daniels, 2009). Because they are pushed between the pressures of having an athletic body, but are also made to be self-conscious when playing sport, this leads to girls to monitor their own bodies by developing disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia (Daniels, 2009). Strategies need to be put into place to restrict and monitor the advertisements being produced in the media to reduce this and add value.


 * Literature Review**

Throughout research that surrounds women’s sport, women are sexually exploited in the pictorial and visual content. The media constructs beliefs about hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity in the present Australian culture. As sporting success levels rest on strength, endurance and speed; males strength and body compositions are advantaged and hold a high measure of athletic endeavours, while female bodies are a reference for weakness and heterosexual attractiveness (Lenskyj, 1998). There is in depth research about the amount of air-time devoted to female sport in the media and the quality of coverage of women’s sport in terms of visual commentary. Studies have shown that women’s sport gets much less air-time than men’s sport and when it is aired, it is depicted in a sexual way (Messner et. al., 2003).

Although female sporting participation has been increasing steadily for the last two decades, it seems the coverage is only very slowly increasing in the media within the last ten years (Lenskyj, 1998). This does not mean that women are not involved in sport and are not winning. In fact, in the 1994 Commonwealth Games, the Australian track and field team won 50% of the medals and the female swimmers won 53% (Keane, 1995). Throughout history, Australian’s legendary love of sport is focused mainly on men’s sport and still today in the minds of most Australians, men’s sport is what Australian’s love to watch and read about. It is shown in newspapers where, in the 1992 Winter Olympics, 70% of the total space occupied by women’s sport was sexualized pictures whereas the remaining was text (Embrey et al., 1992). There is not only a quantitative side of women’s sport in the media but also a qualitative approach where women are being demoralized and sexualized in a semi-pornographic way.

Women athletes are viewed as sex objects in the media. Throughout history of sport, the predominant sporting picture was of a man that was strong and powerful (Wanneberg, 2011). It seems that, because women are not physiologically as strong as men, they need to display their power through sex. Even if they are not portraying themselves as a sex object for attention, the media is doing it for them.

It was reported in the United States by Messner et al. (2003) that although, of the few reports on serious women’s sport (eg, basketball, tennis, golf or soccer) were fairly brief, the more in-depth stories on women’s sport was often a gag feature on a visually entertaining psuedosport like female World Wresting, or more commonly referred to as “wrestling porn” by channel KABC. It has also been shown that if women athletes do not supply enough material for sexual titillation, the media then turns to the sexual images of women in the crowd (Messner et al., 2003).

According to Davis (2001), there are two types of objectification and although male athletes are sexualized in the media, they are not objectified in the same way as women. The first type of objectification is seen as harmless and is motivated by the actual sporting activity; this is how male athletes are depicted in the media. The second focuses on particular body parts with sexual undertones in order to sell something. This is how female athletes are depicted; it does not actually focus on the sporting activity but objectifies their body (Davis, 2001). The media has a tendency to portray elite sportsmen so that other men will have a desire to //be// like them, while it portrays women to make men want to //have// them.

In fact, the sexualisation of female athletes in the media has encroached upon daily life via the media and advertising to the point where pornification elements have become acceptable and even desirable (McNair, 2002). These studies have suggested that the media is continuing to cautiously follow, rather than lead or promote, the sloth-like growth in women’s sports. At best, it seems the media has sporadically offered coverage of women’s sport in a sexual manner, while aggressively expanding on coverage of men’s sport. We live in a media driven society, apparently filled with only heterosexual men who find pleasure in sexualized jokes about women athletes and who do not want to see any respectful reporting of women’s sport.

So there is an issue of adolescent females continuing to play sport due to self-consciousness of their body image and the discrimination by males of their own age (Daniels, 2009). A study from Daniels & Wartena (2011) examines adolescent boy’s responses to images of performance athletes and sexualized athletes. The results show that performance-focused images of female athletes provide a depiction of women’s physical abilities rather than appearance. However, adolescent boys objectify female athletes who are sexualized in the media. So what exactly is the media teaching our young children? That is acceptable to objectify our so-called sporting legends? If adolescent boys are portraying women in this semi-pornographic way, is our society going to continue to grow with the sexist culture? Athletes whose attractiveness receives more attention that their professions are perceived as less talented and less heroic (Daniels & Wartena, 2011).


 * Cultural and Social Analysis**

Feminist advocates have supported women’s sport for a number of years and they have been trying to restore social structures of male and female equality in sport (Carroll, 2011). Marxist feminism uses capitalism, class and economic exploitation to explain inequalities between males and females (Houliham, 2008). Marxist theory can be used to explore gender inequalities within sport such as how women are oppressed in sports, due to sport being related to masculinity and a male dominated profession. Marxist theory is not entirely applicable to sport as it does not incorporate factors of performance, success and achievement. From this, research shows that women traditionally have less time to participate in sport due to their responsibilities of being a housewife and other family responsibilities (Coakley, 2007). As a result of this traditional view of women and the fact that males established sports initially, it seems as though women will never be on par with males due to this image. Another consequence of a traditional view is how masculinity if emphasized within sport, this impacts heavily on the representation of women’s sport. It creates a representation of women being less capable than men, this in turn, lessens the financial gains for women and degrades their accomplishments.


 * Analysis of Artefact and own Learning Reflection**

From looking back at the artifact I have chosen, it is quite shocking to see that, although more females are participating in elite sport, the quality of the small amount of media coverage is still very sexist. It is quite disappointing to see that women need to either be pictured in a seductive way through the media, or wear basically nothing at all to attract support. This artifact shows that sexualization and pornification are made visible by way of their uniforms; after all, the uniform regulations for female beach volleyball players do not apply to the males. It seems that because women athletes are not as popular as men, they need to (or may be forced to) gain attention through their sexual attractiveness (Wanneberg, 2011).

Personally, I believe this is a sad way to retrieve gratitude from the sporting culture but unfortunately is the issue that society faces at present. Sport is based on speed, strength and stamina and as long as women are physiologically weaker than men, they will never be on par in the sporting world (Messner et al., 2003). I believe there should not be any comparison or competition between men and women in the sporting industry but definite equality when it comes to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of men and female sport in the media. From this research, I will forever be struggling to find ways in which to support women’s sport because really, despite the actual proliferation of women’s sports, if it is not covered in the mass media, we can conclude that it did not happen.


 * References**

Caine, B. (2002). Feminism, suffrage and the nineteenth-century English women’s movement. //Women’s Studies International Forum, 5(6),// 537-550. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(82)90095-4

Carroll, J. (2011). PUB209 Health, Culture and Society: Week 3 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved from []

Daniels, E. A. (2009). Sex objects, athletes and sexy athletes: How media representations of women athletes can impact adolescent girls and college women. //Journal of Adolescent Research, 24,// 399-422. doi:10.1177/0743558409336748

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

Davis, P. (2001) Sexualization and sexuality in sport. In: Morgan J, Meier KV and Schneider AJ(eds) //Ethics in Sport//. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 285–291

Embrey, L., Hall, A. and Gunter, A. (1992). Olympiance facing the media. //Refractory Girl, 43,// 10-13

Holland, J. R. and Oglesby, C. (1979). Women in sport: The synthesis begins. //The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 445,// 80-90. doi: 10.1177/000271627944500110

Keane, M. J. and Greendorfer, S. (1995). Male Groin Strains Get a Guernsey as Female world Champions are Ignored. //Refractory Girl, 49,// 7-9

Lenskyj, H. J. (1998). Inside sport or on the margins?: Australian women and the sport media. //International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 33,// 19-32. doi:10.1177/101269098033001002

McNair B (2002). //Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and the Democratization of Desire.// London, Routledge.

Messner, M. A., Duncan, M. C. and Cooky, C. (2003). Silence, sports bras and wrestling porn: Women in televised sports news and highlights shows. //Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 27(1),// 38-51. doi: 10.1177/0193732502239583

Wanneberg, P, L. (2011). The sexualization of sport: A gender analysis of Swedish elite sport from 1967 to the present day. //European Journal of Women’s Studies, 18(3),// 265-278. doi:10.1177/1350506811406075


 * Reviews**


 * 'It's bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance' - Elizabeth Taylor (actress)**


 * Roslyn Cochrane (n8289247)**

Its amazing to think of how many Gen Y’s know the risk factors and implications of HIV/AIDS and still do not do anything about it in the way of safe sex practices. The statistics behind our generation in the way of getting tested for HIV or AIDS is horrendous and really rings true to the title of your Wiki. It is a poor excuse for not using condoms that the known top three reasons for not using a condom are: preferring the sensation, being too horny or being too drunk. I think this topic is one of the most important public health issues in today’s society and I believe that the issue of HIV/AIDS is going to increasingly become worse with Gen Y’s purposeful ignorance. From the statistics of previous generations leading up to today, what is going to become of our children and our children’s children? Are we going to start dying out before we can reproduce?


 * Is generation Y ‘real’ or a creation of the media? Has the media created the ideal body image and what impact is it having on generation Y’s health?**


 * James Calligeros (n8282561)**

Zyzz is the epitome of the Gen Y-socially constructed “man-orexia”, which has been reported as a male version of obsessive body dyspmorphia. It is quite shocking to think that the media has influenced our generation to the point where someone is dying of myocardial infarction at the age of 22. There have always been issues with women’s body image throughout previous generations however the media today has really brought our generation to a whole other level. The fact that models now weigh 23% less than the average Australian girl and the amount of photo shopping of models in magazines is quite disappointing. This is a huge public health issue in today’s society and to think that it is now expanding onto young men of our generation in a way that people classify Zyzz as a role model or ‘king’ shows a lot about what power the media really has.