Gender Discrimination in Sports - Role of the Media
Women face gender discrimination in every space, and sports is no exception to this. It is males that dominate in sports at all levels of sports, and women athletes have less or no recognition due to male dominance in sports. The domination of male athletes is evident even in the media coverage and corporate support offered to athletes.
Media’s Role in Gender Discrimination
The media is playing a major role in underdevelopment of women sports by less representation of the achievements of female athletes in the media coverage. Newspapers, magazines, television channels, feature films - let it e any form of media, there is no specific emphasis or focus on women sports. Women athletes receive less coverage in every form of media. Several studies done on media coverage of women sports found out that women sports are generally ignored or given less coverage compared that given to men sports. The lesser media attention makes readers even feel that there are no women sports happening at all.
Women Athletes as Sexual Objects
In most of the cases, women athletes are merely showcased as ‘objects of desire’ rather than as athletes at all. The most common example of this is “Sports Illustrated Swimwear Cover”. It has nothing to do with women sports, it is more of a ’soft core pornography’.
In 1980’s, when there was a huge craze for aerobics, women are promoted more as ‘objects of desire’ by the corporate media. There is less importance given to what they really gain from aerobics - fitness and health. Instead, many new health and fitness products came into the market projecting the ideal image of a woman - thin, young and beautiful.
Importance of Media for Development of Women Sports
Media attention is very important to women athletes, in this highly competitive sport world, because it is the fuel to get corporate support for the female athletes. Corporate world is hesitant to sponsor more for women sports though women athletes are equally successful as their male counterparts. Thee are two reasons for this. First, the business world is predominantly male. The second reason is - most of the sports fans are men, so the corporates like to invest more on male sports events and men athletes. However, as the women sports are developing, the corporates have to change their policies and start sponsoring more for women sports events and women athletes.
Things Changing for Better
There is good news for women sports. More women are getting into corporates and climbing the ladder to decision making positions. Many women are occupying leading positions in sports media. Adding to these better changes, women athletes are performing extraordinarily in their respective sports.These positive developments make fighting against gender discrimination in sports easier. Now, women athletes are getting the require support. Sports fans for women athletes are also increasing, giving scope for corporates to find the ‘target market’ to invest in women sports.
Let s hope that gender discrimination will disappear soon and women’s sports get equal status as men’s sports.