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Corey Kula

Molly Daniel

ENC1145

5 March 2013

Popularity of Women’s Sports

There is no arguing that the popularity of women’s sports in today’s society is

seriously lacking. For many reasons, it is apparent that women’s sports aren’t receiving

the same respect and amount of viewers that male sports are. Could it be because men

shape the way women think about sports and what they should be watching? Maybe

women’s sports just simply lack media coverage and fans are actually unable to view

women’s sporting events. Or is it the stereotypical gender role psychologically forcing

people to believe that men sports are the norm, and every other type of sport (female

sports) is considered lesser and unimportant? It is clear that women sports receive

insufficient media coverage, are portrayed in a disrespectful manner, and men shape the

way women view women sport’s which ultimately leads to women’s sports being less

popular then men’s sports.

What’s the first thing you think of when somebody says women’s sports? Is it

how Serena Williams looks in a light blue short skirt, or how Maria Sharapova appears in

her body revealing advertisement in Sports Illustrated. The point is that the way women

are portrayed in media when they are discussed, which is rarely, is simply unfair. A prime

example of this is the Don Imus and the Rutgers Women’s basketball team controversy.

Following the Rutgers VS Tennessee women’s basketball matchup on April 3rd, 2007,

Kula

This is a great claim. Nicely revised from previous drafts.

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Don Imus and other news anchors on the radio started to discuss the game. Without even

acknowledging who won the game or how the teams performed, Imus was quick to say

about the Rutgers team, “ That’s some nappy headed hos there. I’m gonna tell you that

now, man, that’s some woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know,

so, like, kinda like, I don’t know” (Gill 119). First off, Imus and his crew weren’t even

analyzing the game, but how the players looked. Right off the bat, the female players are

being talked about as objects for the audience to look and pretty much telling the

audience that the only thing that mattered in that game was how the players looked. If it

was a men’s basketball game, there is no chance Imus would have discussed and judged

the players on how they appeared on the court. Laura Mulvey’s piece titled “Visual

Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” goes in to discuss how women are portrayed in media.

Movies portray women as objects for the male audience to look at and enjoy (Mulvey

12). Women are essentially used as visual pleasure for men (Mulvey 8). The fact that

women are being completely disrespected by the media definitely doesn’t support their

sports. Many people look at women sports and don’t even acknowledge the important

aspects of the sports. How do you think this makes a little girl feel who aspires to play

for her favorite WNBA team when she grows up? Society only accepts female athletes

who look good while doing it. It would make the little girl concentrate more on her looks

and how she appears to others rather then practicing. For example, instead of discussing

how many runs a softball team scored or how many three pointers a basketball team

made, the media is discussing the player’s appearance and judging their looks. Women

Kula

Yes. Good analysis of the quote. If the reaction to this isnt available, but Im interested to know if there was backlash against him for those claims? There’s a lot going on there from appearance to race. Eek.

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are obviously not receiving the same respect that men are getting, and ultimately effects

the popularity of women’s sports.

Through many gender studies, it is proven that men have quite a large impact on

women’s sports viewers and what they prefer to watch. The women appear to be molded

by the men’s decision on what is important and exciting to watch. The result of that is

women watching men’s sports more often and just simply being around men’s sports

much more frequently the women’s sports (Farrell, Fink and Fields 194). Every single

result that Farrell, Fink, and Fields received from their study on why women sports aren’t

as popular as men’s sports revealed that only men had an influence on female’s interests

on sports. One study that Farrell, Fink, and Fields performed was on a women named

Sarah. She was quoted saying “I grew up liking the Reds and Bengals. I liked those teams

because of my dad (laughs). My mom wasn't interested in sports. She didn't participate

much in high school. It's just the amount my father watches, she has grown to like

watching with him. She isn't that into it” (Farrell, Fink and Fields 194).

Another study resulted in the women being shaped by her husband’s interests in

relation to sports. Through these studies, it is evident that the men feel that male sports

are the only sports deemed important. Considering women are shaped on what to watch

from men in their lives, the idea that only men sports are significant is adopted by the

females. Women in these studies have also mentioned that they are also willing to do

pretty much whatever it takes to be able to spend time with the men in their lives. Farrell,

Fink and Fields explain that, “The experiences of several study participants suggest that

perhaps women sacrifice their own interests to watch sports to spend time with

Kula

This topic sentence sets you up well for the discussion that follows.

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men” (Farrell, Fink and Fields 195). This, without a doubt, shapes women’s views on

what is deemed important to watch.

It appears that in today’s society that men sports are more important and are more

worth watching then women’s sports. A set of analyses has shown that women and men

both believe that sports are generally a “guy thing” (Farrell, Fink and Fields 195). Sarah,

one of the participants in the study, shared that she had been shaped to the great extent of

believing that when thinking of sports, assuming that that the topic is men’s sports

(Farrell, Fink and Fields 195). Her boyfriend and the university she attended in general

shaped her to think that way. Another participant, Diane had a pretty similar experience.

The participants (all female) in this study discussed the enormous influence men had in

their lives when it came to watching men’s sports. Diane, one of the participants,

explained that her son was always dragging her to attend sporting events, which were

always men’s sports (Farrell, Fink and Fields 194). It seems that people, for some reason,

automatically assume that when somebody bring up the topic of sports, it is men’s sports.

This obviously doesn’t aid in the popularity of women’s sports. Farrell, Fink, and Fields

point out:

A quick glance at many sport media print and electronic publications reveals

language that supports "sport" meaning "men's sport." Scholars have noted that

the term "basketball" is synonymous with "men's basketball" and the women's

game is distinguished by "women's basketball" (Blinde, Greendorfer, & Shanker,

1991). The result is that college basketball becomes the default term for the men's

game. It is clear… This was fostered through the spectator demands of men in

Kula

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their lives and later reinforced through the lack of media coverage and visibility

offered to women's sport. (Farrell, Fink and Fields, 195)

This finding plays perfectly into Rita M Gross’ journal “What Went Wrong?” Men have

historically refused to understand and acknowledge their gender, which makes it seem

like men aren’t gendered and are just the norm (Gross 8-20). Obviously, women sports

aren’t being respected like they should be.

Another study done, this time on televised media, suggests that the well-known

sports news program “SportCenter” opens their show with a male sports story 100

percent of the time (Smith). Moreover, when the men and women’s college basketball

tournaments are being played in March/April, men’s coverage out numbers women’s

coverage by about 10 to 1. How are women sports expected to thrive when everybody

who watches ESPN are only able to watch men’s sports.

A huge problem with women sport’s not getting the proper amount of coverage is

that younger girls and teenagers won’t be as enticed to play their favorite sports. Smith

goes on to say, “If girls aren't seeing other girls or women playing sports, then it reduces

their ability to imagine themselves as athletes, and that might affect their participation in

sport.” It makes complete sense. Why would a young girl be inspired to take on

gymnastics or women’s golf if all media covers is men’s sports. It’s clear that men’s

sports are dominating media coverage. The popularity of women’s sports is being

completely tarnished for reasons such as these.

Probably the leading reason why women’s sports popularity is lacking is because

of the insufficient media coverage of the sports. Observing four popular newspapers,

Kula

I like this. It signals a shift into the “argument” of your essay nicely.

Page or paragraph number?

You have the name in the intro, but a page/paragraph number should be in a parenthetical citation here.

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USA Today, Dallas Morning News, Orange County Register, and the Boston Globe,

studies were performed to establish how much of these newspaper’s sports coverage was

dedicated to women’s sports and how many were devoted to men’s sports. “Stories

focusing exclusively on men’s sports outnumbered stories addressing only women’s

sports by a ratio of 23 to 1” (Duncan, Messner and Williams 3). Furthermore, women

sports stories only consisted of 3.5 percent of all of the stories and were statistically

shorter in length (Duncan, Messner and Williams 2). Can it be any more clear that there is

a gender bias going on in today’s media? It appears that the editors of these newspapers

are either not a fan of women’s sports or they are receiving some sort of market research

that is telling them what consumers want to read up on. The next question that needs to

be answered is why are sports writers devoting minimal coverage on women’s sports?

Duncan, Messner and Williams state:

Defenders of the sports media status quo claim that newspapers and other media

devote little coverage to women’s sports because relatively few people care about

them. Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept this premise, the question

remains, why is there a lack of interest? Is it because women’s athletics are

inherently uninteresting or is it because the media through under-reporting have

failed to "legitimize" women’s sports? (4)

In a study done by Penn State University researchers, there is further proof that editors

have a vital role in what get’s put out and the opinions of those editors. According to

journalism professor at Penn State Dr. Marie Hardin, “In a survey of 285 newspapers,

nearly 25 percent of editors agreed with the statement, ‘Women are naturally less athletic

Kula

Almost all of your quotes are introduced well, but make sure you have some of your own text preceding this quote too.

I deleted the authors here since you use their names in the intro to the quote.

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than are men,” (Penn State). Additionally, about 44 percent of editors of the 285

newspapers said they believed women have little or zero interest in sports (Penn State).

Little do the editors know that the same study showed that 30 percent of the readers of

the newspapers were women (Penn State).

It is evident that women have yet to gain as much respect as men sports have.

There are still strides to be made in order to gain the equality that they deserve. Whether

it’s the fact that men shape the women in their lives to be men’s sports fanatics today’s

society believes that sports are strictly for men, it is blatant that women’s sports are a lot

less popular then men sports and are being completely disrespected by society.

Furthermore, it is undeniable that women are being impertinently portrayed in media,

when they even get the chance to be brought up in media, which is rarely. Are there

honestly not as many exciting stories to tell in women's basketball, or are they simply less

compelling because it's women's sports and not men's. It’s a disgrace how much women

sports have been and are continuously disrespected and how much inequality they are a

part of. A few risky things that could be done to bring out the equality of women’s sports

is definitely start airing more women’s sports games on TV and discussing more women’s

sports in newspapers and in other media outlets. Sports fans primarily discuss things that

they read up on in newspapers or magazines or what they watch on T.V. If fans begin to

see more women’s sports media coverage, they will realize that women sports are

important and are just as equal as men’s sports. The risky part of this idea is losing ratings

and followers because your fans may not be interested in women sports. So possibly a

huge deal with several of the leading sports media corporations agreeing to air or discuss

Kula

You have a set up here fore a whether...or statement, but you do not have the or.

Isnt it kind of problematic that this is risky? Think about March madness. How many channels covered the men’s tournament vs the womens? I’d venture to say that sort of event would be a good place to start because of its popularity.

What do you mean with this word choice?

Good, I like how you are providing possible remedies for the problem you have established.

This sentence is incomplete. What is missing?

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a certain number of women’s sports each day. That way, not one sports corporation is

dominating the ratings. An idea like this could definitely change society’s views on

women’s sports. That is just one of numerous possible ideas that can be brought out to

positively impact the popularity of women’s sports. Hopefully something changes

quickly to allow the popularity of women’s sports to grow, because right now, nothing is

being done.

Kula

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Works Cited

Blinde, Elaine M., Susan L. Greendorfer, and Rebecca J. Shanker. "Differential Media

Coverage of Men's and Women's Intercollegiate Basketball: Reflection of Gender

Ideology." Journal of Sport and Social Issues 15.2 (1991): 98-114. Academic Search

Complete. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

Duncan, Margaret C., Michael Messner, and Linda Williams. "Coverage of Women's

Sports in Four Daily Newspapers." Coverage of Women's Sports in Four Daily

Newspapers. The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, Jan. 1991. Web.

17 Mar. 2013.

Farrell, Annemarie, Janet S. Fink, and Sarah Fields. "Women's Sport Spectatorship:

An Exploration of Men's Influence." Journal of Sport Management 25.3

(2011): 190-200. Academic Search Complete. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

Gill, Emmit L., Jr. "The Rutgers Women's Basketball & Don Imus Controversy

(RUIMUS): White Privilege, New Racism, and the Implications for College

Sport Management." Journal of Sport Management 25.2 (2011): 118-30.

Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.

Gross, Rita M. "WHAT WENT WRONG? FEMINISM AND FREEDOM FROM THE

PRISON OF GENDER ROLES." Cross Currents 53.1 (2003): 8-20. Academic

Search Complete. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.

Kane, Mary J., and Heather D. Maxwell. "Expanding the Boundaries of Sport Media

Research: Using Critical Theory to Explore Consumer Responses to

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Representations of Women's Sports." Journal of Sport Management 25.3 (2011):

202-16. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen 16.3 (1975):

6-18. Wiki.brown.edu. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.

"Penn State Researcher Finds Lack of Coverage For Women's Sports." Black Issues in

Higher Education 22.10 (2005): 15. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Mar.

2013.

Smith, Hilary. "HILLARY SMITH: Study: Women's Sports Aren't Equal." Nwitimes.com.

N.p., 07 June 2010. Web. 18 Mars. 2013.

Corey,

This draft is so good. You have done a really good job outlining your argument,

positioning it and then offering potential ways to “fix” it. You incorporated Mulvey well,

and it helped you position the problem with the media and representation. There’s just a

few minor issues to be fixed, which I marked through the comment feature. You have

solid sources that created strong ethos for you are as writer. Nicely done. A range.

Kula