Play Like a Girl: An Analysis of Media Representation of Female Athletes

Proceedings of GREAT Day Proceedings of GREAT Day

Volume 2015 Article 17

2016

Play Like a Girl: An Analysis of Media Representation of Female Play Like a Girl: An Analysis of Media Representation of Female

Athletes Athletes

Katherine A. Mannion

SUNY Geneseo

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Katherine A. Mannion. Play like a girl: an analysis of media representation of female athletes. e Proceedings of GREAT Day (2015): 72-81.

Mannion, K.A. Play like a girl: An analysis of media representation of female athletes.

e Proceedings of GREAT Day (2016): 72-81.

Play Like a Girl: An Analysis of Media

Representation of Female Athletes

Katherine A. Mannion

oth the general public and the producers of

sports media view women’s sports in America

as less important, less relevant, and less worth-

while than men’s sports. is has led to problems,

including a lack of representation in the media, a lack

of places for young women to play sports profession-

ally, a lack of female role models for female athletes,

and dangerous playing conditions for female athletes.

Investigating this problem will get to the root of the

reasoning for and uncover the extent of this issue.

Previous research in the eld has shown that women

are not fairly represented in the media or on the play-

ing eld. Harris polls from the last three years have

shown a lack of interest from the public in women’s

sports (Corso, 2014; Braverman, 2011), while data

from 2009 shows that major networks like ESPN

only gave 1.6% of their coverage to women’s sports

(Messner & Cooky, 2009). Other research has found

that when young women do not see female athletes,

they feel discouraged from participating and stop

playing (Schmalz, 2006). It has also been shown that

women are represented best in sports where their

bodies can be sexualized and they can be shown o

as being attractive (Hilliard, 1984). is study will

investigate these claims, namely the extent of the

lacking representation of female athletes and the ef-

fect it has on public perception of these athletes.

is study hypothesizes that women’s sports media

representation is minimal, and that the public per-

ception of female athletes is sexual and delegitimizes

their ability to perform. e research will include a

comprehensive look at modern sports reporting and

the opinions of young people on women’s sports in

order to nd out if there is a relationship between the

two. e study will discuss how sports media aects

the way female athletes are perceived by the public.

is study will have practical implications in that it

will uncover the issues in representation for women’s

sports in the media and in the eyes of the public.

It will provide a springboard for the continuance of

changes in the way women’s sports are represented

and how female athletes are perceived. It may provide

a positive eect on young sports-playing women to

encourage them to stay in the game.

liteRAtuRe ReVieW

Sports in America

In the United States, sports are a large part of the

identity of the nation. According to a Harris poll,

most Americans watch football (Braverman, 2011).

ree quarters of men and over half of women watch

somewhere between 1 and 16 hours of football per

week, whether it is watching multiple games or par-

ticipating in fantasy leagues (Braverman, 2011). A

dierent Harris poll also found that a majority of

Americans say professional football is their favorite

sport in general, with 35% reporting as such (Corso,

2014). Professional baseball garnered 14% in a eld

of 21 options.

ABstRAct

is paper critically examines the relationship between media representation of female athletes and the public

opinion of female athletes. Research has shown that female athletes are more likely to be sexualized than male

athletes and are therefore delegitimized in their skill. rough analysis of sports websites and a survey distrib-

uted online through a midsized, public, liberal arts college in the Northeast, data was gathered to establish

the public opinion of female athletes. Research presented shows that female athletes are delegitimized and

sexualized as a result of a lack of procient coverage of their athletic skills and pursuits.

Mannion: Play Like a Girl

Published by KnightScholar, 2016

Sports as a cultural identity. e large role that

sports play in the American culture shows how they

construct the social identity of America. e creation

of a cultural phenomenon has several aspects. Cul-

ture, rst and foremost, is the way that humans or-

ganize themselves and create relatable ideas that have

common ground across dierences. Generally, lm,

music, and celebrities create culture. According to

Lull (2000), culture is not just the existence of these

things, but the way that the ideas, values, and things

are reacted to, interpreted, and spread through com-

munication. erein, culture is both a source and a

resource. It is a source in that it generates what is

being reacted to and it is a resource in that it cre-

ates something for humans to react to and build an

identity around. Culture is always changing, and the

public opinion of certain aspects of culture can shift

rapidly from positive to negative depending on how

it is being presented.

Sports are a cultural phenomenon in that they are

an obsession of the American people that occupies

much of the nation’s time and energy. ey are also

used as vehicles to promote teamwork, physical t-

ness, and hard work, as demonstrated by the dierent

campaigns athletes participate in. For example, the “I

Will What I Want” campaign from Under Armour®

promotes enthusiasm for tness and achieving goals,

and features athletes including Kelley O’Hara, Misty

Copeland, and Briana Cope. Michael Jordan was fea-

tured in the “Be Like Mike” campaign where he en-

couraged young people to become like him by drink-

ing Gatorade. ese athletes are gureheads and role

models for values, and Americans adjust their views

to match those of their favorite athletes.

is idea that athletes are role models and promote

teamwork and other values is in part due to the cul-

tivation theory, which posits that people will believe

television reects reality and adjust their views ac-

cordingly (Gerbner, 1976). Cultivation theory has

been used as a cornerstone for the eects of media on

consumers. Researchers have found that those who

watch more television are more likely to be discon-

tented because their lives do not resemble the world

on television. Many studies have reected that con-

stant media consumption leads to poor psychological

health and warped perceptions of reality (Dittmar,

1994; McCreary & Sadaca, 1999). e hypermas-

culine idea presented through sports media contrib-

utes to the hegemonic masculinity that promotes

strength, power, and aggression as traits specically

for men.

Fanaticism associated with sports. e inuence of

sports culture on America is directly related to in-

creased fanaticism, or relation and passion for a cer-

tain thing (Wang, 2006). Sports fanaticism has led to

increased camaraderie amongst Americans. In Signs

of Life in the USA, it is suggested that this camarade-

rie is due to a certain amount of escapism from eve-

ryday life that sports provide. According to Maasik

and Solomon (1994), sports create a way for Ameri-

can men to remove themselves from the home, their

jobs, and other benign activities and vigorously en-

gage in watching or playing extreme physical sports.

Wang (2006) posits that Americans use sports teams

to identify themselves, similar to the way they iden-

tify with a race or geographical location. Americans

use their favorite sports teams to create a community

of people who are interested in the same things as

themselves.

Fanaticism also has a darker side, creating more

ways for hardcore fans to be aggressive, mean, and

almost dangerous. Fanatics have a conviction that

their understanding is absolutely right, which reects

in sports fans when they aggressively defend their

favorite teams and athletes (Marimaa, 2011). Mari-

maa (2011) also states that fanatics try to push their

allegiances onto others. is correlates with Wang’s

(2006) study, which states that fans of winning teams

encourage others to also root for their team and will

be crude, crass, and downright violent to those who

disagree with them. erefore, although the fanati-

cism brings Americans together in united excite-

ment, it also creates tension when there are diering

opinions. e fanaticism is primarily related to male

sports, however, as male sports are seen as more ag-

gressive and deserving of crazed obsession than wom-

en’s. is obsession fuels the occupation Americans

have with men’s sports that involves aggression and

forms the public’s opinion.

Gender in Sports

e Harris poll asking for the favorite sports of the

participants has been taken annually since 1985

(Corso, 2014). Sports played by women were not

included in the poll questions until 2000. However,

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when they were included in the survey they consist-

ently ranked low, earning less than 0.5% of the votes

every year, with the exception of women’s tennis and

women’s college basketball, which pulled 1% of the

votes in a few dierent years (Corso, 2014). Tradi-

tional gender roles and heteronormativity may play

a role in the distaste the American public has for

women’s sports (Schmalz, 2006; Greendorfer, 1987).

Sports are often seen as hypermasculine physical

events. By merely participating in certain sports that

are seen as not “appropriate,” people send messages

to the people around them about certain characteris-

tics (Messner, 2002). When asked to distinguish girls’

sports from boys’ sports, young girls had more di-

culty explaining why certain sports, like baseball, did

not include women, while boys were content explain-

ing that girls should not become dirty so they cannot

play football and boys should not wave their hands

in a certain way so they cannot cheerlead (Schmalz,

2006). According to Schmalz’s (2006) study, data

collected from interviewing young people showed

that women are more likely to play more masculine

sports at a young age than men are likely to play fem-

inine sports. Additionally, a Women’s Sports Founda-

tion Study states that girls who participate in sports

and receive positive reinforcement in their youth are

more likely to continue to play into adulthood, casu-

ally or professionally (Greendorfer, 1987). However,

young girls are highly likely to face strict scrutiny as

they grow up and continue playing their sport.

While Title IX requires that girls in school be oered

the same opportunities to participate in sports as

boys, according to Yu (1993), literature presented to

children appears to do the opposite, showing young

girls playing sports in picture books only about 25%

of the time (Yu, 1993). is underlying sexism cre-

ates an environment that enforces gender roles, estab-

lishing men as more likely to continue playing sports

and excel than women. So although women are more

likely to play masculine sports as young people, they

are likely to stop as adults as they are told to grow

out of it.

Trujillo (1991) argues that sports culture is a result

of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is

created as a result of physical force and dominance.

erefore, when men play sports and place them-

selves above women as dominant, powerful forces,

they reinforce traditional roles and the patriarchy.

According to Trujillo’s (1991) study, masculinity is

enforced by the dominant group’s claims that sports

create a hypermasculine society. Football especially

emphasizes sanctioned aggression and violence. e

banning of women from this sport reinforces patriar-

chal values that women are weak and unable to be as

strong as men.

Women’s Sports

Evolution of women’s sports in America. Sports are

considered a largely male-dominated space. e “big

four” major league sports—baseball, football, basket-

ball, and hockey—expressly prohibit women from

playing, but did not always. According to several New

York Times reports, a female pitcher contracted with

an AA team by the name of Jackie Mitchell struck

out both Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth during an ex-

hibition game (Brandt, W. E., 1931). A fear that the

mound would become feminine led to her contract

being voided. Women were formally banned from

baseball in 1952 because it was considered by Com-

missioner Kenesaw Landis to be “too strenuous” for

women (as cited in Pietrusza, 1998, p. 374). While

there is no explicit rule in either rulebook, neither

the NHL nor the NFL have ever accepted female

players onto teams. Due to this, women have been

forced to create their own leagues.

Historically, while there have been several attempts

to form and operate women’s professional sports

leagues, they do not succeed when compared to

men’s professional leagues. Softball, considered a

safe alternative to baseball, existed as the Interna-

tional Women’s Professional Softball Association, or

IWPSA, until 1980. e league folded due to a scal

diculty and in 1982 the NCAA began to sponsor

college softball. is allowed the U.S. Women’s Na-

tional Softball team to form, and after several victo-

ries on the international stage, enough professional

sponsors nally came together to create the WPSL,

or Women’s Professional Softball League. ey have

since changed their name to National Fastpitch Soft-

ball, according to their website. Women’s hockey

formed a professional league in 1999 that lasted only

eight years (NWHL, n.d.). ere is currently no sin-

gle professional women’s hockey league in America

even though the U.S. Women’s National Hockey

team holds medals from the last ve Winter Olympic

Mannion: Play Like a Girl

Published by KnightScholar, 2016

Games (USA Hockey, n.d.). Female sports leagues

seem unable to thrive, as seen here, possibly because

women’s ability to play their sports is considered to

be less valuable than a man’s.

Why women’s sports are not valued. According to

Messner (1988), increasing athleticism in women

does not signal increased freedom for women within

sports. e attempts of women throughout history

to overcome the bounds of hegemonic masculinity

have been aggressively shut down by those in power.

Female athletes have historically had to dene their

beauty by the standards put forth by men. e only

movement to contest this was the women’s body-

building movement, which allowed women to dene

what was strongest and “best” (Messner, 1988). Men

respond to women who excel in athletics by stating

that they would not do well if they were in a man’s

version of the sport. Hegemonic masculinity is so in-

grained in culture that the media uses its coverage

to align American values with male sports, and with

other females playing sports that are considered to be

more masculine.

Media coverage of women’s sports. As media has

become the primary way to watch, judge, and analyze

sports, coverage of sports news has become almost

entirely male-focused. In an observation of the 1992

Olympics done by Higgs and Weiller (2003), they

found that when reporters covered women’s sports,

they covered them by using degrading comments

about the female athletes’ bodies and physiques in-

stead of judging their ability to participate in their

respective sports. Words including “strong” and “ag-

gressive” were used to describe male athletes nearly

3 times as often as they were for women (Higgs &

Weiller, 2003). It was also found in the next three

sets of Olympic Games that sports media conglom-

erates claimed to promote equal opportunities for fe-

male and male coverage, but overhyped male sports

and barely promoted female sports (Higgs & Weiller,

2003). e female sports that were promoted were

ones men found aesthetically pleasing, such as gym-

nastics and swimming (Riebock, 2012).

In addition to Olympic coverage, bias exists during

the regular season as well. In 2011, the Badminton

World Federation demanded that all female players

wear short skirts in order to make play more appeal-

ing to viewers. e rule was considered not only to

be sexist, but disrespectful to players whose religious

ideologies prevented them from being able to wear

short skirts. It was publicly decried as sexist and was

eventually overturned, but remained in place long

enough to anger professional female athletes both in-

side and outside of the sport (Longman, 2011).

A prime example of poorly covered female athletes

is the United States Women’s National Soccer Team.

is team is one of the premier women’s teams in

the world. It has won ve Olympic gold medals and

has medaled at every Olympic Games it has attended

since 1996. It has also won the Gold Cup at the Con-

federation of North, Central American, and Caribbe-

an Association Football (CONCACAF) tournament

six times. e Women’s National team has also placed

at the World Cup every time they have competed

since 1991, winning twice. ey brought America’s

attention back to the sport in 2012 after winning a

gold medal at the Olympics and were able to create

an American league for the regular season. However,

they are subjected to sexism in the media and within

their own sport. ey are rarely presented in athletic

poses in magazines, a common trend amongst female

athletes, and they have made the cover of Sports Il-

lustrated a total of three times (Wahl, 2014), once for

sportswoman of the year.

Underlying sexism can be found even within the

organizations that fund women’s sports. After ex-

amining the FIFA website, it has been found that

the group values men’s soccer over women’s (Meân,

2010). e FIFA website’s top stories were 97.3% on

men’s soccer and the stories were severely lacking in

terms of results for World Cup Qualiers, which oc-

curred at the time of the story (Meân, 2010). Ad-

ditionally, photographs of athletes on the site were

mostly of men, but the few photographs of women

showed the women from the waist up, celebrating

their success or hugging their teammates instead of

actually participating in the sport (Meân, 2010).

Lack of representation within the organization that

runs the event shows the underlying sexism within

the sport. Not identifying, glorifying, or heralding

female athletes for doing the same work that the male

athletes do classies them as “others” and diminishes

their worth as athletes.

Female soccer players’ ability to play their sport is

inhibited by sexist rules put in place by their federa-

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tions. FIFA has announced a bid to play the Women’s

World Cup on turf instead of grass. is is considered

dangerous, and has been called “padded concrete” by

Women’s National Team player Megan Rapinoe (Pe-

terson, 2014). It is more likely to cause injury and

prevents playing the game to the fullest for fear of

injury, according to a recent study (Sousa, Rebelo,

& Brito, 2013). More than half of the participants

in this study were injured on turf during their season

as a direct result of the turf eld (Sousa et al., 2013).

Abby Wambach and 40 other international players

have led a lawsuit against FIFA for discriminating

against them according to Canadian and interna-

tional statutes, alleging that playing on turf creates

danger and is a violation of human rights laws in that

it denies female players the right to play on the same

level as male players (Dellinger, 2014). Women are

expected to have the same opportunities that men

have on the eld and playing on turf prevents that.

Methods

e research gained from this study will principally

be used to examine the phenomenon of misrepre-

sentation or lack of representation of female ath-

letes in sports and sports media. Using data from

the study, conclusions will be drawn regarding the

public perception of female athletes. Principally, the

study will focus on how people who either follow or

do not follow sports see women’s sports compared

to the amount of representation within the media.

e study will also look at the sexualization of female

athletes by major sports outlets both on and o their

respective elds, with a focus on women’s soccer. By

looking at this information specically, it is hoped

that a root for the cause of the discrimination, as well

as the public perception of the discrimination’s ex-

tent, can be found.

Website Analysis

In conducting this study, sports media conglomer-

ates and their coverage’s breadth will be analyzed

rst. ESPN, Fox Sports, and BleacherReport will be

the focus of the study. ese conglomerates are the

best-known sports programs on the national level and

set the bar for local sports reports (Tuggle, 2009).

e study was done by viewing the websites for each

sports conglomerate and comparing the amount of

time given to women’s sports and to men’s sports. In

a 2009 study looking at similar factors, it was found

that women’s sports received 1.6% of the coverage

in major sports shows, while men’s sports received

96.3% of the coverage (Messner & Cooky, 2009).

Survey

A nal method of this research study was an analysis

of public opinion on the coverage of women’s sports

in the media. is was done using a survey distrib-

uted through Google Forms. e survey had about

20 questions and took somewhere between 5 and 10

minutes to complete. e population to be evaluated

was that of a liberal arts college in the northeastern

region of the United States. e college has approxi-

mately 5,000 students and is located in a rural area

with approximately 30,000 people in it from back-

grounds varying from metropolitan to rural to inter-

national, allowing for a broad range of responses. Ad-

ditionally, the college has a history of fairly successful

athletic programs. Respondents were asked about

their interest level in sports as well as their ability to

name female athletes and sports leagues.

A similar study to this one was conducted with mid-

dle school boys as subjects by showing the subjects

athletes and models in several positions and evaluat-

ing their reactions. e students were presented with

15 pictures of white women and asked for their opin-

ions (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). e study found

that sexualized athletes were written about more for

their appearance, alignment with the female ideal,

and sexuality than performance athletes were (Dan-

iels & Wartena, 2011). is study will perform a

similar experiment. e researcher will show mem-

bers of the focus group photographs of athletes in

two dierent positions, sexualized and in action. e

subjects will then be asked for three adjectives to de-

scribe both images of athletes. From there, data will

be put together about how athletes are viewed in dif-

ferent scenarios. e athletes were chosen based on

whether or not they had photographs in the ESPN

Body Issue.

AnAlysis

Website Results

On the ESPN website’s home page there were 43 sto-

ries featured across a broad range of sports, including

college and major league athletics. Because of the time

Mannion: Play Like a Girl

Published by KnightScholar, 2016

of year, most of the stories were about college and na-

tional football, as well as college basketball. Of these

43 stories, one was about a female athlete. Statistical-

ly speaking, this is approximately 2% of stories. is

story linked to the website ESPNW, the ESPN site

dedicated to women, and was about Heather Hardy,

a female boxer. However, the article did not focus on

her wins or athletic prowess but rather on the hard-

ships she has faced as a female boxer. It discussed her

selling tickets to her own ghts and being sexually

assaulted by a coach (Larriva, 2014). It repeatedly

emphasized her aws, and even went as far as to say

“she isn’t the best or smartest ghter out there” in an

article meant to herald her strengths (Larriva, 2014).

In fact, the article repeatedly emphasized the fact that

boxing is not ready for an all-female card.

Bleacher Report, another sports conglomerate, had

no female athletes or women’s sports on their main

web page. In their top 10 stories, two were about

football, two were about basketball, two were about

hockey, and the other four were public interest sto-

ries, including an athlete’s new line of sneakers and

a “kiss cam” mishap. None of the stories were about

women’s sports. At the bottom of the home page for

the site, a list of 10 “featured authors” in varying

sports was listed. One of these authors was female.

Additionally, the website provided tabs that users

could hover over to select teams. Even though these

sports included college basketball, mixed martial arts

ghting, and hockey, no women’s leagues or teams

were available to select. ere was also no link for a

separate website dedicated to women’s sports.

A nal website, Fox Sports, also had no female sports

stories on their front page. ere was one story about

Danica Patrick, but not in the context of her sport.

It highlighted her attending a country music awards

show. e story did not contain any reporting but

was a slideshow of her posing with dierent coun-

try musicians on the red carpet for the event. While

Danica Patrick is a high-prole auto racer within the

sport of NASCAR, the article was about her in terms

of fashion at an award show unrelated to NASCAR.

Within the story, Danica Patrick was introduced as

a GoDaddy.com representative before a NASCAR

racer. GoDaddy is a company that uses sexualized

images of women to sell website domains. Finally, a

sidebar containing most recent sports scores, titled

“All Sports,” did not contain any female sports scores,

despite covering college soccer and hockey.

Image Analysis

In a survey distributed through Google Forms, there

were 193 respondents. e survey was open to people

with email addresses for the college surveyed. Survey

respondents were predominantly female, with 75%

of the respondents reporting as such. Sixty-eight

percent of the respondents said they had considered

themselves athletes at some point in their lives, and

69% said they follow sports. Football is the most fol-

lowed sport, followed closely by baseball and hockey

Research participants were presented with images of

three female athletes and three male athletes in two

dierent poses. One set of images was from the Body

Issue of ESPN Magazine and the other set were the

athletes playing their respective sports. Participants

were asked to give three adjectives to describe their

opinion of the athletes based solely on the images.

e six athletes all received distinct opinions from

each other.

Male images. e male images were of Marshawn

Lynch, a professional football player; Michael Phelps,

a swimmer; and Prince Fielder, a professional baseball

player. ese three men were shown mostly naked

in one image and seen playing their respective sports

in the second image. Marshawn Lynch was shown

in a lunging position, naked, holding a football in

his Body Issue picture. Michael Phelps was shown

lunging from a diving block presumably towards the

water. Prince Fielder is shown holding a baseball bat

behind his head and turned to the side. eir action

shots are Marshawn Lynch in full gear setting up a

play, Michael Phelps swimming freestyle, and Prince

Fielder swinging at a pitch.

For Lynch, the most common word given as a re-

sponse (62.9% of the time) was “strong.” Second to

this was the word “muscular,” given as a response 58%

of the time. Many participants stated that Lynch’s

pictures made him look tough and threatening, as

well as “committed,” “proud,” and “ambitious.” Of-

ten, participants would use the word “threatening”

in addition to a positive adjective. e most-used

adjective for Phelps was “muscular,” appearing 27%

of the time. “Strong” appeared in 17% of responses.

Respondents were also apt to mention his drug use,

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which could not be gathered from the images and

might have tainted results. Prince Fielder, who is no-

tably heavier and less dened than either of these ath-

letes, received responses with dierent connotations.

While the predominant adjective given was “strong”

(28%), 25% of respondents used some variation of

the words “fat,” “heavy,” or “overweight” when de-

scribing him.

Female images. e female images were of Alex

Morgan, a professional soccer player; Miesha Tate,

a professional mixed martial arts ghter; and Hilary

Knight, a professional hockey player. As with the

men, in one image the women were shown mostly

naked in various positions and in the other they were

in action. Alex Morgan’s rst image is her lying on a

beach in a prone position, wet presumably from the

water. Miesha Tate’s is her wearing only pink hand

wraps and covering her breasts. Hilary Knight is

wearing nothing but hockey skates and surrounded

by hockey equipment, bending over as to hide her

breasts. In Morgan’s second picture she is receiving

a pass, in Tate’s she is kicking an opponent, and in

Knight’s she is executing a shot.

e most prevalent word for Alex Morgan was “ath-

letic,” with 33% of respondents using it. However,

36% of respondents used words to objectify and

sexualize. ese words include “hot,” “sexy,” “beauti-

ful,” and “attractive.” Additionally, the word “strong”

was used just as often as the word “sexy” by 16.2%

of respondents. Miesha Tate’s adjectives most closely

resembled those commonly used for the male ath-

letes. Forty-seven percent of respondents used the

word “strong” to describe her; 21% of respondents

used sexual language to describe her, including words

like “sexy,” “hot,” and “beautiful;” 33% of respond-

ents called Hilary Knight “strong,” and 17% called

her “athletic;” and nally, 52% of respondents used

sexual language to describe her, including “sexy,” “at-

tractive,” “pretty,” “hot,” and “gorgeous.”

Websites lacked coverage. e websites rarely, if

ever, had stories about female athletes. is result

is not surprising and is supported by the study by

Higgs and Weiller (2003) that found sports networks

often failed to give equal media time to women’s

sports. Additionally, the few sports stories that did

cover women’s sports appeared to objectify the wom-

en. Heather Hardy’s story discussed her in terms of

her lack of skill instead of the skill she denitely has

(Larriva, 2014). e women’s sports covered were

also usually aesthetically pleasing sports or related to

events outside of the sport that were focused on aes-

thetics. An example of this is the coverage of Danica

Patrick. While she manages to hold a high position

in a male-dominated sport, she is sexualized and

fetishized as a result of hegemonic masculinity. As

shown in the only women’s sports story on the Fox

Sports site, Patrick is delegitimized by being sexual-

ized in order to keep her from overshadowing men

she surpasses in skill.

Expected results. Examining the words used by par-

ticipants to describe the athletes led to expected re-

sults. While both men and women were described

as “strong” across the board, certain athletes were

more likely to receive that descriptor than oth-

ers. Marshawn Lynch was overwhelmingly called

“strong,” and Hilary Knight was also often described

as “strong.” e key similarity between the two of

them is the muscle denition in their naked pictures.

However, Lynch received few descriptors sexualizing

him. Knight’s strength was often coupled with her

sexual appeal or beauty. While the descriptors used

for all of the athletes were fairly similar, and almost

entirely complimentary, female athletes were sexual-

ized when the male athletes were not. Female-typed

words such as “erce” or “t” were used more often

than words like “tough.” ese diering explanations

for athletes of similar tness levels in similar posi-

tions strengthens the idea that hegemonic masculin-

ity adds more value to males than females in terms of

their athleticism.

discussion And conclusion

is study highlights and examines the media cov-

erage of female athletes as well as the public’s opin-

ion of the presentation of female athletes. e study

identies the dierence in narrative between male

athletes and female athletes both in the media and

in the public eye. e presentation of female athletes

on sports websites compared to the words used to de-

scribe female athletes shows a clear “othering” within

the genre. While men are constantly called “strong,”

women are often called “t” or identied using sex-

ual or female-typed words. Men do not receive any

praise in terms of their physical appearance outside

of outright athleticism.

Mannion: Play Like a Girl

Published by KnightScholar, 2016

is study supports and adds to the work of Higgs

and Weiller (2003), who noted that reporters were

more likely to discuss the physical appearance of

female athletes in terms of attractiveness than their

athletic abilities. e statistics gained from the re-

search participants in this study support Higgs and

Weiller’s (2003) work closely, showing that a male-

typed word (“strong”) was used 4 times more often

for male athletes than for female athletes (62.9%

to 16%), whereas female-typed words like “t” and

“erce” were exclusively used for female athletes. Ad-

ditionally, Daniels and Wartena’s (2011) study found

that high school boys were more likely to discuss the

body types and appearance of female athletes when

the athletes were shown in passive poses rather than

in their in-action poses. e present study suggests

that people, in this case people between the ages of

18 and 25, will sexualize female athletes if presented

with a provocative image, even if the image is side by

side with an action shot.

Along with female-typed words, female images are

often passively posed. Goman’s (1979) concept of

the feminine touch states that women are more likely

to pose cradling things instead of carrying them in

order to seem more passive. For example, in the im-

age presented to the focus group of Hilary Knight,

she is surrounded by hockey gear but not holding or

wearing any of it, and bent over as if reaching for her

skates. In the action image, she is tightly gripping her

hockey stick and intensely focused. Goman (1979)

also posits that women are often photographed as dis-

tant and drifting from the scene. Photographs of Alex

Morgan and Meisha Tate show them staring into the

distance and not focused on the camera, dehumaniz-

ing them and allowing them to be sexualized further.

e lack of coverage of female athletes in action

solidies the hypermasculinity of the sports world

and the ease through which they are sexualized.

News outlets not covering female athletes for their

achievements establish men as the superior athletes

and delegitimize women’s participation in sports in

general. As mentioned earlier, young women who do

not see athletes in action are less likely to continue

playing sports (Yu, 1993). Additionally, when wom-

en are shown in sports media, they are shown out

of the context of their performance, as evidenced by

ESPN’s story about Heather Hardy and her struggles

to become a boxer rather than her achievements as a

boxer. When athletes are not shown participating in

their sports, it makes it dicult for the general public

to see them as athletes and not just sexual beings.

When asked to name female athletes, participants

mentioned the same four athletes repeatedly, all of

whom broke into a traditionally male sport or had

some sort of scandal surrounding them. Serena Wil-

liams and Venus Williams have dominated the game

of tennis and won repeatedly but have also been sur-

rounded by scandals, including being accused of be-

ing too masculine by the head of the Russian Ten-

nis Federation (“Russian Ocial Not Sorry,” 2014).

Hope Solo has been successful as a soccer goalie but

also has been surrounded by domestic abuse scandals

(Sullivan, 2014). As the analysis of websites showed,

female athletes are often not written about for their

skills in games but for outside events such as attend-

ing festivals or struggling in their home lives. is

study reinforces the claim that a lack of serious cover-

age of sports delegitimizes the women who play them

and creates images of sexuality and weakness.

is study’s examination of media coverage and pub-

lic opinion sheds a bit of light on the general trends

of misogyny within the sports world. Further research

could continue to create a link between the coverage,

or lack thereof, of female sports and the way athletes

are viewed in the public sphere. Although female ath-

letes are continuing to achieve and becoming more

recognizable in the public eye, there is more to be

done to ensure female athletes are recognized for ath-

letic prowess and that young girls are encouraged to

play sports by seeing people like themselves succeed-

ing. Researching this topic further could help change

trends of misogyny and “othering” within the sports

world and create a more equal environment.

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