Survey

I created survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G9XKFLJ

Here's the result that I found.

When people think of professional athletes, the names that come to their minds are players such as Kurt Warner, Mark McGwire, Michael Jordan, etc. People think that male athletes are more popular than female athletes in the professional sports world because of the media coverage.

Coverage of Male Athletes > Coverage Female Athletes

I collected local newspapers to see whether they have equitable coverage of female and male athletes.

Facts and Statistics

Researchers at Vanderbilt University found that in three newspapers, The Tennessean, USA Today and The New York Times, men received 82% of all sports coverage and women received 11% (6% of sports coverage included both genders). (Coaching Women’s Basketball, Jan./ Feb. 1997.)



An examination of ESPN’s SportsCenter in both 1999 and 2004 showed that the show devoted only two percent of its air time to women’s sports. In 2004, Fox Sports’ Southern California Sports Report devoted only three percent of air time to women’s sports. (Messner, M.A., Duncan, M. C. & Willms. N. (2006). “This revolution is not being televised.” Contexts.)

In ESPN’s list of the top 100 athletes of the 20th century, only three women were listed from number 51-100. (#69 Bonnie Blair, #64 Althea Gibson, #59 Billie Jean King) The top 50 included five more women — Chris Evert (#50), Wilma Rudolph (#41), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (#23), Martina Navratilova (#17) and Babe Didrikson Zaharias (#10). (ESPN, 1999.)

Only four women made the list of Sport Magazine’s “Players of the Half-Century” – Billie Jean King (#12), Martina Navratilova (#22), Chris Evert (#33) and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (#36). (Sport, September 1996.)

A study reviewing school reading texts found that boys were represented in physical activities 65% of the time, while girls were represented 35% of the time. In addition, boys dominated throwing and catching activities, while girls dominated dance and swing-set activities. (Henschel-Pellet, H.A. (2001). “Physical Activity Gender-Role Stereotyping: An Analysis of Children's Literature,” Research Quarterly.)

“Media Coverage and Sport: FACTS AND STATISTICS”
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Media-and-Publicity/M/Media-Coverage-and-Sport-FACTS-AND-STATISTICS.aspx

Media Coverage

Media coverage of athletics continues to reinforce the ongoing division between men and women. Media is a powerful factor, which can affect our beliefs, attitudes, and the values. Men’s sports always are used as a topic of on-going media and journalism curiosity. TV stations, newspapers and magazines usually do more coverage of men's sports than women’ sports. When we turn on TV screen, there’s a high probability that a men’ sports game will be on at a sport channel than women’s. If women are as important as men are. There should have equal coverage in television, newspaper and magazines. In fact, men get most coverage of media in many areas.

On the other hand, the coverage of female athletes in the media is always framed within conventional discourse of the sexualized body because men don’t like female sports,but they like to see female athletes' bodies. “Within the frame of the media, the bodies of female athletes are understood and legitimated first and foremost as being about femininity rather than athleticism. [For example, ] the controversies around three-time Olympic veteran Amanda Beard’s choice to pose along with other Olympians on the 2004 cover of FHM magazine wearing only a white bikini, where critics claimed she was denigrating the sport, were about the apparent incompatibilities between the sexualized body and the athletic body.”(Bryant, P487)

A female athlete always is recognized first as a woman, second as an athlete. People pay more attention on their feminine bodies and feminine beauty more than their athletic skills. “Most media discourses surrounding coverage of female athletes are shaped around the connection between athletic recognition and legitimate femininity.” ((Bryant, P491) For example, most female tennis players still wear skirts instead of shorts because skirts are more feminine, even though shorts are more comfortable.

A. Raney Jennings Brant. “Handbook of Sports and Media”. Mahwah,NJ Lawrence Eelbaum Associates Publishers, 2006.

Image from: http://everyjoe.com/sports/espn-the-magazine-body-issue-nude-female-athletes/
http://www.examiner.com/tennis-in-national/river-strand-golf-country-club-to-host-adult-tennis-summer-series

Pay Inequity in Athletics

Today, female athletes’ scholarships and salaries are increasing. However, male athletes still make more money than female athletes. College and professional sports still provide unequal funding for women. They are still paying men more than women for the same sport. They give women less incentive in the sport. Female students comprise 57% of college student populations. However, female athletes received only 43% of participation opportunities. There are 56,110 fewer participation opportunities than men. The gap between female athletes and male athletes seems become narrow, but male athletes still receive 55% of college athletic scholarship dollars. There is only 45% of college athletic scholarship dollars be allocated to female athletes. In addition, women's teams receive only 38% of college sport operating dollars and 33% of college athletic team recruitment spending.

Moreover, in the NCAA's Division I, the richest and most powerful athletic programs, women hold less than 8% of athletic director positions. Female athletic director and administrators were sent down to lower positions than male athletic director and administrators. Female athletics were controlled by men. The coaches in women’s teams earn less than the coaches in men’s team. According to the NCAA’s Division I, the head coaches for women's teams receive an average salary of $850,400 while head coaches for men's teams average $1,783,100. (Pay Inequity in Athletics)

On the other hand, most Advertisers and sponsors want to put their more money in men’s sports teams because they think that they are going to get the most return from men’s activities. As a result, men's sports teams always get more support than women’s. So even today women are still fighting for equality and opportunity.

“Pay Inequity in Athletics” http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Equity-Issues/P/Pay-Inequity-in-Athletics.aspx

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History of Women in Sports

Women have faced many difficulties throughout the history of sports. There are a lot of obstacles that have been thrown in their way. People tend to believe that women are weaker than men. They think that women can not do the same things that men can do. They think that sports are for men. Women should stay home and take care of their children. Many women try to shatter these pre-conceived notions.

Let’s look at the Olympic Games, which started as a male dominated organization. Originally, women were not allowed to participate, but they kept trying to get into the games anyways. Historical evidence proves that the first Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C. As women were “excluded, … they compete[d] every four years in their own Games of Hera, to honor the Greek goddess who ruled over women and the earth. [In] 396 B.C.[,] Kyniska, a Spartian princess, [won] an Olympic chariot race, but [was] barred from collecting her prize in person.” (History of Women in Sports Timeline)

There were many restrictions to try to keep women out of the male dominated sports world. They were continually reinforced until the twentieth century. Women were not even allowed to participate in the first modern Olympics in 1896. Finally, women were allowed to participate in 1900 Olympics, which were held in Paris. However, only nineteen athletes were women. Only three sports were opened to women at that time. They were tennis, golf and croquet. (History of Women in Sports Timeline).

After women started to get into the sports world, they still faced many different criticisms. Throughout history, our society is a patriarchal society. So people believed that women were too weak to handle physical activity. Women’s role in sports was limited to being a spectator. In the early days, Physical Education instructors strongly oppose competition among women because they tend to think that Physical Education would make women less feminine. Women were told that they were too fragile to participate in most sports.

In addition, people were afraid that using too much mental and physical power would make a woman become manly. Moreover, in earlier times, women were told that sports were harmful for them because they believed that too much physical activity would damage a woman's reproductive system. It became a good reason for men to keep women away from many sports. As a result, in the early day, women in sports were very feminine, such as, golf, tennis, skiing, skating, etc. Women's singles tennis competition was added to Wimbledon in 1884. The first Women's French Tennis Championship was held in 1887. The first Women's French Tennis Championship was held in 1897. The first Australian women's national golf championship was held in 1894. (History of Women in Sports Timeline) “These sports demonstrated the agility and elegance “natural” to women and, although athleticism is clearly a major aspect of these sports, the individual stars were known, culturally at least, for their “feminine” attributes: self-sacrifice, glamour, grace.” (Bryant, P487). However, at that time, only the women who were from the upper class could have the privilege of sporting.

Women started to enjoy sports in the 20th century. Many organizations were established in 1920’s to serve as the collective voice of women. The National Women's Athletic Association was organized in 1921. The National Amateur and Athletic Federation (NAAF) were founded in 1922. They were eager for equal footing with the same standards, the same program and the same regulations for boys and girls.

The Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (IWFA) was founded by Bryn Mawr, Cornell, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania in 1929. The Lake Placid Club organized skiing events for college women. The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) added track and fielded events open to women. AAU sponsored the national women's basketball championship and used the men’s rules. (History of Women in Sports Timeline)

Thanks to the passing of Education Amendment to the Civil Rights Act, Title IX, women were able to participate more than ever in sports. Moreover, their funding has been increasing. Title IX states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” (Suggs, Welsh) The number of women participating in college sports has increased. Female sports started to expand and grow. Title IX was giving women a huge step towards achieving their goals in sports. It provided an opportunity for females in the sports world. But women still have a long way to go.

We did see the influence that Title IX has had on female sports participation. “In the year prior to the passage of the law, only 1 in 27 high school girls participated in varsity sports.”(A Quarter Century In The Evolution Of Women's Sports) In contrast, in 1998, the figure is an astounding one in three, while male sports participation on the high school level, which is one in two. Another statistic also shows the effect of Title IX involves the number of females participating in college sports. According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), “only 31,852 females participated in sports during the 1971-1972 school years. Five years later during the 1976-1977 school years, one season prior to mandatory compliance of Title IX that figure had more than doubled to 64,375. Currently, there are more than 125,000 female athletes playing on teams sanctioned by the NCAA.” (A Quarter Century In The Evolution Of Women's Sports)

“History of Women in Sports Timeline” http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/timelne4.htm

“A Quarter Century In The Evolution Of Women's Sports” http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Equity-Issues/A/A-Quarter-Century-In-The-Evolution-Of-Womens-Sports.aspx

Suggs, Welsh. “A Place on the Team”. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 2005.

Image from: http://marquettejournal.org/blog/2009/12/features/carousel/a-golden-histor/