By Alexandra Berard

Final Project:

GEND 350:Sex, Sport, and Society

Prof. Carolyn L. Fortuna

THE PORTRAYAL OF FEMALE ATHLETES

IN ADVERTISING & MEDIA

BENEFITS OF TITLE IX

• “The influx of girls and women into sports following the passage of Title IX Legislation in 1972 was the key antecedent to the eventual development and recognition of a women’s market in sports and fitness.”  

Source: Lucas

BUSINESS• Title IX legislation not only changed the playing

field, it change the market place.

EXPLOITING THE FEMALE ATHLETE

• Dr. Murray Phillips, author and authority on media coverage and women's sports says “sexploitation” is harmful.

• “It excludes many female athletes who do not fit into the appropriate body types,

• It glorifies certain female shapes and sends messages about what is appropriate and inappropriate for aspiring female athletes.

• These images fit neatly into stereotypes that have historically prevented women's sport from being accepted on par with men's sport.”

Source: Australian Sports Commission

WHY ATHLETES ACCEPT BEING EXPLOITED

• “As long as their ambiguity persists, the oppressed are reluctant to resist, and totally lack confidence in themselves” (p. 50).

• “All the actions of the dominant class manifest its needs to divide in order to facilitate the preservation of the oppressor state” (p. 140).

• Because the consumer/fan does not consider women’s sports equal with men’s sports, female athletes have to accept the media’s sexualization to emphasize their femininity and gain publicity and money. Anna Kournikova is a perfect example of this.

Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed notes

Liang, E.

 

 

 sour ces :  Pedagogy  o f   the  Opp ressed  no tes  

ANNA KOURNIKOVA HAS NEVER WON A MAJOR TOURNAMENT’ BUT SHE HAS BECOME THE WORLD’S MOST HIGHLY PAID

WOMEN’S TENNIS PLAYER THROUGH ENDORSEMENTS THAT EMPHASIZE HER SEX APPEAL OVER HER ATHLETICISM.

ARE WOMEN EXPLOITING THEMSELVES FOR FINANCIAL GAIN OR ARE THEY BEING EXPLOITED

BY OTHERS FOR FINANCIAL GAIN?

• “ It is not always easy to ‘distinguish the difference between women’s capital accumulating strategies and the use of women by others as bearers of capital value.”

Source: Bourdieu, Feminism and Female Physical Culture: Gender Reflexitivity and the Habitus-Field Complex

EXPLOITATION CAUSES PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL DAMAGE

• “Advertisers manipulate reality in the service of selling their products.”

• Even though we know images are retouched and celebrities have cosmetic work done, the constant bombardment of these images affect our perspective and self esteem.

• “It is the created image that has the hold on our most vibrant, immediate sense of what is, of what matters, of what we must pursue for ourselves.”

Source: Bordo, Hunger As Ideology

IMAGES SELL • The media regularly delves into the personal lives of female

athletes, and minimizes their accomplishments and skill. There is too much focus on how they look and not enough credit for their ability.

EXPLOITATION CAUSES PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL DAMAGE

• “In constructing images, of course, continual use is made of knowledge of consumers’ lives. Indeed, a careful reading of contemporary advertisements reveals continual and astute manipulation of problems that psychology and popular media have targeted as characteristic dilemmas of the “contemporary women,” who is beset by conflicting role demands and pressures on her time.”

• Advertisers have mastered the skill of using buzz words such as: Control, Mastery and Empowerment.

• When directed at the male consumer it is control, mastery and power over others.

• When directed to a female audience it is control, and mastery and empowerment of your self. Do you measure up?

Source: Bordo, Hunger As Ideology

• WHEN COVERING WOMEN’S SPORTS, THE MEDIA REGULARLY PORTRAYS FEMALE ATHLETES AS SEX OBJECTS.

THIS TYPE OF ADVERTISEMENT REINFORCES THAT BEAUTY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ABILITY.

• http://youtu.be/au17YpGAa-s

“STUDIES HAVE REVEALED THAT NEWSPAPER AND TV COVERAGE AROUND THE GLOBE ROUTINELY AND SYSTEMATICALLY FOCUSES

ON THE ATHLETIC EXPLOITS OF MALE ATHLETES WHILE OFFERING HYPERSEXUALIZED IMAGES OF THEIR FEMALE

COUNTERPARTS.” 

Source: The Nation

FACE BOOK -SURVEY RESULTS

• 30 responses, 1.) How do you perceive Roger Federer on the cover of Australian Tennis?

A.) Athletic (20)   B.) Hyper sexualized (0)   C.) Tennis Superstar (9)   D.) None of the above (1)   E.) All of the above (0)

2.) How do you perceive Caroline Wozniacki on the cover of Australian Tennis?

A.) Athletic (4)   B.) Hyper sexualized (16  ) C.) Tennis Superstar (4)   D.) None of the above (2)  E.) All of the above (4)

3.) Do you feel athletes are overly sexualized in the media?

A.) Just male athletes (1)   B.) Just female athletes (13)   C.) Both (11)    D.) Neither (5)

WHY ARE FEMALE ATHLETES CONSTANTLY DEPICTED AS SEX OBJECTS?

PERHAPS IT IS BECAUSE BOYS ARE CONDITIONED IN THE ART OF MASCULINITY FROM BIRTH. THE RESULTS SUPPORT A DOMINANT PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY.

• “Masculinity is as much about proving what one is not—namely female and homosexual. Thus in the contradictory and unforgiving world of adolescent masculinity, one must sanction all that is “appropriately” male while simultaneously ridiculing all that is not.”

• “Examination of the crucial role that sports play in boys’ lives and American society offers a meaningful context, for sports functioned as a prominent rite of passage and means of acceptance for the boys who clearly sanctioned the collective American belief that athletic ability is a prerequisite for “manhood” and sports the natural training ground for the “traditional” male role.”

Source: The Making of Masculinity

• “our very ways of knowing or being in

the world, so natural to us that we generally fail to see their constructed nature or influence in our lives. Because we rarely recognize this influence, we become gendered through language as our positioning within these dominant discourses actively shapes and influences our notions of what it means to be “male” and what it means to be “female” in the social context.”

• According to The Harvard Law Review “media exploits women because the American public still has not yet become comfortable with the ways in which female athletes challenge traditional notions of femininity and masculinity.”

NIKE & ESPN HAVE TEEMED UP TO CHANGE

ATTITUDES

• “Framing of female athletes as sex objects or as sexual deviants is no longer a tenable strategy if the media are to maintain their own legitimacy.”

Source: Messner

WOMEN WANT ATHLETES TO LOOK LIKE ATHLETES, NOT SEX SYMBOLS

• “University of Minnesota Professor, Mary Joe Kane, PhD,  is one of the nation's most outspoken critics of the sexualized imaging of women athletes.

• She has joined an advisory panel that will guide the ESPN on its future coverage of women's sports and women athletes. 

• ESPN launched a new business and digital platform called espnW.”

• “Nine for IX” documentary on why women athletes should be treated equal to their mail counter parts.

• http://youtu.be/oAzVJ7KJefU

Source: MinnPost

.” 

NIKE: HELPING TO CHANGE LIVES

• Nike knows “Girls are a smart investment to accelerate change. This isn’t a social issue; it’s smart economics.”

• Nike has generated a series of commercial to empower the female athlete

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ighxU1vYw&feature=share&list=PLE1DF982CBAEF3000

• “Girls can play a crucial role in solving the most persistent development problems we face in the world today.”

Source: nikeinc.com

• Perhaps the The Nike Foundation “The Girl Effect” is one of their reasons for the commercial campaign to empower the female athlete.

• The girl effect is about leveraging the unique potential of adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves, their families, their communities, their countries and the world...http://www.girleffect.org/

UNFORTUNATELY THERE ISN’T ANY LEGISLATION TO REGULATE

EQUALITY IN ADVERTISING

• Do you think media advertisement should be regulated around women?

REFERENCES• Australian Sports Commission.• http://www.ausport.gov.au/participating/women/resources/issues/media•  • Bordo, Susan. Hunger as Ideology•  • Heinrich, Jill. The Making of Masculinities: Fighting the Forces of Hierarchy and Hegemony in the High School Setting.•  • Liang, E. (2011). "The Media's Sexualization of Female Athletes: A Bad Call for the Modern Game." Student Pulse, 3(10). 

Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/a?id=587•  • Lucas, Shelly. “Nike’s Commercial Solution: Girls, Sneakers, and Salvation.” 

http://irs.sagepub.com/content/35/2/149.abstract•  • Messner, Michael A., Sports and Male Domination: The Female Athlete as Contested Ideological Terrain, (pg. 205) 

http://journals.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/9489.pdf•  • MinnPost. “Media critic and women's sports advocate Mary Jo Kane is about to step into the belly of the ESPN beast”•  

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2010/07/media-critic-and-womens-sports-advocate-mary-jo-kane-about-step-belly-espn-b

•  • The Nation. “Sex Sells, Not Women Sports.” http://www.thenation.com/article/162390/sex-sells-sex-not-womens-sports# •  • Pedagogy of the Oppressed notes