When doing research for the recent out of class assignment, I found an article from ESPN.com discussing Danielle Lawrie, a softball pitcher in the NCAA. She plays for the University of Washington and is the Most Outstanding Player in the Women's College World Series and the NCAA's Player of the Year for 2009. The ESPN article opens with a description of the 2009 first draft baseball pick, Stephen Strasburg. The author then proceeds to compare Lawrie to this first draft pitcher throughout the article. He then describes his experiences batting against male pitchers, and compares them to his experiences batting against Lawrie. This is a great example of how the media references the dominant men’s sports, even throughout articles about women’s sports.
I feel that this happens a lot in today’s media coverage of sports. Any time we hear about women’s sport, there is almost always a reference to an equivalent men’s sport thrown in. I think that this is due in part to the fact that more people will understand the significance of what is going on in women’s sport if they have something more well-known (i.e.- a similar event in a men’s sport) to relate it to. For example, an announcer might call a female basketball player the next female Michael Jordan. Even though this may help to explain why this happens, I think sports media writers, broadcasters, and announcers need to be more aware of this trend. Hopefully if the media can hype up women’s sporting events on their own merit, then people will get more excited about women’s sport.
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You make some very good points. As someone who will be in the media (or involved with it) in some capacity, I understand the trends you have mentioned.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not think people will get more excited than they currently are about women's sport, if the media completely started referring to accomplishments in women's sport in relation to other women's sport participants' achievements.
In some ways, I think using men's sport as a reference helps women's sport, because many people understand the comparison.
This is an interesting subject, for sure.
I think that in the short run you are right, referencing men's sports can give the people watching women's sports a frame of reference. However, I think that if everyone always uses men's sports achievements to reference women's achievements, then women will never be able to stand on their own. And why are women's sports never refernced during men's sports? Because men's sports are dominant and fewer people would understand the references to women's sports or athletes. So I guess the key is generating interest in women's sports.
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm all for women's sports gaining interest and fans. I hope someday it is just as popular as men's sports, despite how tough that might be.
ReplyDeleteVery good points, again.
The key is definitely generating interest in women's sports. I think what you are describing is a form of "gender marking," and the assumption is that men's sports are superior. While that may seem like a "no-brainer" to some, perhaps that superiority is predicated on the belief that the qualities needed for those sports should be most valued.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this video of Danielle, that we included in our group presentation. I thought it visually demonstrated that girls ARE able to be better than boys (which some people don't seem to believe), and did so with some humor in how the guy who was attempting to swing at her pitches couldn't make contact with a single one. I thought that the class really enjoyed watching this video during our presentation also, and that it provided a new and different example which demonstrated concepts we had discussed in the class previously.
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