{"id":16850,"date":"2019-06-18T02:40:34","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T02:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=16850"},"modified":"2019-06-19T05:58:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T05:58:01","slug":"i-still-get-tweets-to-go-back-in-the-kitchen-the-enduring-power-of-sexism-in-sports-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/i-still-get-tweets-to-go-back-in-the-kitchen-the-enduring-power-of-sexism-in-sports-media\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen’ \u2013 the enduring power of sexism in sports media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Serazio<\/a>, Boston College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The story of the 2019 U.S. women\u2019s national soccer team is not yet written, but its opening chapter \u2013 a 13-0 drubbing of Thailand<\/a> \u2013 has inspired American fans hoping for a championship repeat.<\/p>\n

The U.S. women\u2019s soccer team has long been the envy of the world. And yet, thanks to a scheduling \u201coversight<\/a>,\u201d should the squad make the Women\u2019s World Cup final on July 7, they\u2019ll have to complete for viewers with the Copa America and Gold Cup finals, which will be held on the same day.<\/p>\n

In other words, two regional men\u2019s soccer tournaments might upstage a signature worldwide women\u2019s sporting event.<\/p>\n

To me, this scheduling \u201coversight\u201d is just a microcosm of the way women are treated in the world of sports. And it isn\u2019t just relegated to the playing field.<\/p>\n

In my new book, \u201cThe Power of Sports<\/a>,\u201d I draw upon dozens of interviews to look at the barriers female athletes and journalists face.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worse than you think.<\/p>\n

Lack of interest or lack of coverage?<\/h2>\n

Almost every single survey of sports media over the years \u2013 irrespective of the sport or outlet \u2013 finds female athletics wildly underrepresented relative to men\u2019s.<\/p>\n

For example, one 25-year-long study<\/a> showed that local news outlets spend only 3% of their airtime covering women\u2019s sports, with ESPN allocating a mere 2% of its coverage.<\/p>\n

Not until the 1990s<\/a> did women\u2019s sports begin receiving \u2013 barely \u2013 more attention than sports involving horses and dogs. Of course, that didn\u2019t prevent Serena Williams\u2019 2015 selection as Sports Illustrated\u2019s \u201cSportsperson of the Year\u201d from igniting a debate<\/a> over whether Triple Crown thoroughbred American Pharaoh deserved the honor instead.<\/p>\n

The typical rebuttal to the lack of coverage is an alleged lack of interest.<\/p>\n

But this obscures the circular logic that bedevils women\u2019s sports: The way in which sports media outlets market and cover games partly determines how much fan interest they\u2019re able to gin up. In other words, ratings are often generated by hyping the games. When ratings go up, it justifies the use of those resources.<\/p>\n

So when a WNBA game gets punted to an obscure cable channel and has a low production value, it sends a message about priorities to audiences.<\/p>\n

Networks like to claim they\u2019re just responding to market forces when they ignore these games. But it\u2019s never been a level playing field: Women\u2019s sports rarely receive the media attention lavished on men\u2019s<\/a>, so the comparison seems unfair.<\/p>\n

When I asked ESPN\u2019s executive vice president for programming and production about this problem, he shrugged. \u201cAny media entity,\u201d he said, \u201ctend[s] to focus the majority of [its] coverage on the topics that are most interesting to your viewers, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, ESPN claims to be amoral on questions of gender equality. Its obligation is to simply give the audience what it thinks it wants.<\/p>\n

All men, all the time<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, sports media remains an overwhelmingly male field.<\/p>\n

More than 90% of anchors<\/a>, commentators<\/a> and editors<\/a> are men. Not until 2017 did a woman announce a men\u2019s March Madness<\/a> or Monday Night Football<\/a> game.<\/p>\n

Might this color the way female athletes are portrayed? One 2013 review<\/a> highlighted some notable disparities. When talking and writing about female athletes, commentators tend to focus more on their emotions. They tend to downplay their physical prowess on the field and sexualize<\/a> their bodies off the field.<\/p>\n

Conditions aren\u2019t much better for women working in the media.<\/p>\n

Lesley Visser was a sportscaster across multiple networks for four decades. In the late 1970s, as a young reporter for The Boston Globe, she received \u2013 and ignored<\/a> \u2013 a media credential stipulation that forbade \u201cwomen or children in the press box.\u201d<\/p>\n

She assumed that waves of women would have followed her lead. But she can\u2019t believe how little progress has been made.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to the NFC Championship, and in the press box there are maybe three women out of 2,000 credentials,\u201d she told me. \u201cI think we\u2019re at the same percentage as in the 1980s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social media mobs swarm<\/h2>\n

The few that do break through can expect to be targeted on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still get tweets to go back in the kitchen,\u201d Tina Cervasio, a sports reporter for Fox\u2019s New York affiliate, told me. \u201cThey\u2019re worried about color of hair and how a woman looks. \u2026 If I was as fat and bald as [some male sportscasters], I would not have that job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim Jones of the NFL Network concurred. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten tweets that the only reason I have a job is because of my looks; I\u2019ve also gotten plenty more tweets that, you know, I\u2019m an unattractive reporter who shouldn\u2019t be on television.\u201d<\/p>\n

This highlights the double bind<\/a> that female sports journalists face: They feel the pressure to look good for the cameras. But then they\u2019re also denigrated by some who say they only have their jobs because of that attractiveness. It\u2019s tough to imagine a handsome male sportscaster having the same charge leveled against him.<\/p>\n

And when mistakes get made \u2013 as any human is liable to do \u2013 the female sports reporter feels like she\u2019s given less leeway than her male counterpart because he doesn\u2019t have to prove that he really belongs there.<\/p>\n

As former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill explained to me, whenever she makes an honest error,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe immediate reaction from a still-too-large segment of the public is going to be, \u2018That\u2019s why women shouldn\u2019t talk sports.\u2019 Even though most guys that are in [my] position probably would make a similar mistake, but it\u2019s never going to be about their competence. It\u2019s never going to be about their gender, where it will be for me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
Journalist Jemele Hill speaks on stage during the 2017 Hashtag Sports Conference in New York City.<\/span>
\nSteve Luciano\/AP Images for Hashtag Sports<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2016, an award-winning public service announcement<\/a> featured male fans reading actual tweets that had been directed at prominent female sportscasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope you get raped again,\u201d one read. Another: \u201cOne of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick like the whore you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those targeted on social media, Chicago sports talk radio host Julie DiCaro, weighed in poignantly this past April.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt always seems to come down to this idea that men have a proprietary interest in sports that women don\u2019t have,\u201d she told The Chicago Tribune<\/a>. \u201cAs if we aren\u2019t the daughters of Title IX. As if some of my earliest memories aren\u2019t sitting on my dad\u2019s lap watching the Bears and Cubs. \u2026 Sports belong to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

They should. They just don\u2019t \u2013 yet.\"The<\/p>\n

Michael Serazio<\/a>, Associate Professor of Communication, Boston College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Serazio, Boston College The story of the 2019 U.S. women\u2019s national soccer team is not yet written, but its opening chapter \u2013 a 13-0 drubbing of Thailand \u2013 has inspired American fans hoping for a championship repeat. The U.S. women\u2019s soccer team has long been the envy of the world. And yet, thanks to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":16849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[365,2158,5592,1976,3329,702,203,5156,738],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16850"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16856,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16850\/revisions\/16856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}