Article Review #3 - Women, Sports, and Journalism

Sarah Jump

WGST 202

T/TH 11:12:15

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Women and Sports

Article Review #3

Women, Sports, and Journalism

Schmidt, Hans C. “Women, Sports, and Journalism: Examining the Limited Role of Women in Student Newspaper Sports Reporting.” Communication and Sport (2013): 246-268. Sage Journals. Sage Publications. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.

            In “Women, Sports, and Journalism: Examining the Limited Role of Women in Student Newspaper Sports Reporting” Schmidt examines the inequality that is seen amongst journalists on college campuses as well as the unequal amounts of coverage of men’s and women’s sports that exists in campus media (Schmidt 246).  Schmidt shares that “on an average day, research suggests that just 3% of newspaper sports stories are about women’s sports teams, and 5% are focused on individual women athletes (Schmidt 247). This means that on average, when a woman and man of the same athletic stature are compared head to head in terms of recognition, the women has a 95% chance that her accomplishments will not be fully recognized. The women who have put forth the same amount of effort that her male counterparts are receiving a fraction of the attention and congratulations from the media that they deserve.

            As time goes on, one would think that things would get better. This would make sense since the human race is an ever changing, progressive species. In the case of the female sports coverage, it has only gotten worse. In 2004, women’s sports received 6.3% of broadcast time and by 2009 women’s sports received less than 2% of broadcast time (Schmidt 247). Shouldn’t the qualifications for journalists be based on writing skills and academic accomplishments? Why goes gender have anything to do with it. By putting an “F” rather than a “M” on a job application, women seem to actually be doing themselves a disservice.

Unfortunately the problems that women’s sports face when it comes to representation in the media doesn’t stop with the lack of representation, but it moves to the issue of gender roles. Even when women athletes are portrayed in the media, they are portrayed in a way that pushes them into their stereotypical gender roles (Schmidt 247). Even when women are covered, media attention is often skewed to represent stereotypical gender roles. Schmidt shares that “nearly 75% of television coverage of women’s events in the 2008 Olympics was devoted to traditionally acceptable female sports including gymnastics, swimming, diving, and beach volleyball” (Schmidt 248). Not only are these sports traditionally played by females, but they are the sports that require the least amount of clothing. In all of these sports, women typically either wear a bathing suit or a uniform that closely resembles a bathing suit. Women are being sexualized in the media even just through the sports that are chosen for coverage or the lack of.

The unfair gender representation continues its trend in the career of journalism as well. In his work, Schmidt shares that, “women account for 6.3% of sports editors, 10.5% of assistant sports editors, 9.9% of sports columnists, 10.6% of sports reporters, and 16.1% of sports copy editors and designers” (Schmidt 248). Journalism was originally a male dominated field and it continues to be to this day. The field has grown tremendously over recent years and women have become more and more interested. With a field saturated with hopeful graduates of both genders, women still only receive a fraction of the jobs that men receive.

Schmidt describes the lack of female journalists as being described by a theory called “tokenism.” The tokenism perspective “suggests that minority groups that compose less than 15% of the workforce have a ‘‘token” status,” which includes women as well as other minority groups (Schmidt 249). These groups are “lacking the critical mass needed to improve the field, such token groups—including women in sports journalism—often suffer from stereotyping, and end up leaving their field at higher rates than larger groups” (Schmidt 249). Basically this is saying that women don’t have the womenpower to actually change the low numbers that describe their field. Schmidt also says that in most fields, professionals are not told specifically how to act socially, therefore people create roles for themselves based on the feedback that they receive from their peers (Schmidt 250). If women are being treated in a way that aligns with a particular stereotype, rather than being treated as an individual, they would have a reason to leave while men may not. “The male-centric culture within sports journalism can have negative effects which ultimately drive women from the workplace” (Schmidt 250).

Overall, women seem to really have an upward battle in both the field of sports journalism as well as in sports themselves. I believe that as an American, it is easy to think that we are “ahead of the game” or “more advanced” when it comes to social issues like this one, but in reality we really are not. In Iran, women are treated with the same kind of disrespectful stereotypes in regards to sports. The article “Iranian Women and Football” speaks about women not being allowed to enter a sports stadium because of their gender just as women struggle to make it in a competitive field that should have equal opportunity for all genders. Iranian women and American women really face similar struggles even though we are worlds apart. Reading this article makes me want to become a sports journalist, just because I see the need for strong female representation in the field. In short, H.C. Schmidt covered this topic in a very thorough and intellectual manner.