Robert Tyler

UWRT 1102-003
Professor Carty
Final Draft
Are Women Not Superior In the Sports World?
Are women not superior enough to be shown in a positive way in sports and not just as
sex icons to the world? There a lot of women that play sports all around the world and dont get
recognized as professional or collegiate athletes. You may barely say women in the media being
shown as athletes and its really biased towards female athletes. Showing bias towards someone
or something is like choosing or favoring one more than the other. Females all over the world are
shown as small, weak, incomparable to men in sports, and not very athletic. So you will see men
sports more often than women on television and women are barely presented to media and when
they are it is limited and most of time negative.
Women are presented to the media as weak and like a normal person who are not
supposed to be playing any kind of sport. This article states right here how commentators talk
about women compared to men athletes.
Commentators often used words like "big," "strong," "brilliant," "gutsy" and "aggressive"
to describe men, while tending to save "weary," "fatigued," "frustrated," "panicked,"
"vulnerable" and "choking" for women. Words that communicated strength were used
four times as often as those that connoted weakness to describe male tennis players, while
female tennis players were slightly more likely to be described as weak playing sports.
[Duncan, Margaret]
Commentators also use descriptive words that make whatever sport the female is playing
sound like its too much for them or their too small to be playing that particular sport. Also

Robert Tyler
UWRT 1102-003
Professor Carty
Final Draft
finding ways to get around saying their strong or she is good. Using words like big girl, and
shes tiny, shes small, but so effective. Words like this show you that commentators would
rather say things that make them look weak and good in the same line instead of just saying they
are good at that specific thing or sport. On the other hand men are strong, explode to the basket,
and are big. In the game of basketball men miss misfire while women just miss the shot. Women
apparently fail because they are nervous, have a lack of confidence, and a lack of stamina. Men
apparently fail because of the power, strength, and intelligence of the other males theyre
playing. Women just are weak and dont possess the attributes needed to be successful in sports.
The statistics show that this cuts out on the money spent on females.
A lot of times if you watch sports channels you will see more men sports being offered to
watch on the television than women. Women playing sports is at the highest its ever been at. It
seems like women are somewhat invisible when it comes to showing their sports on television.
The leader of sports coverage in America are giving us a high production-value of men sports
and it almost totally excludes women. Women playing sports are exceedingly high and growing
each year. Although the percentage of women sports on television is declining every year. It has
declined to 1.6 percent of total airtime. Espns Sportscenter covered womens sports 2.2 percent
in 1999. It dropped to 2.1 from 1999 to 2004. It drastically dropped from 2004 to 2010 to 1.6
percent. Sports media is powerful and only displays women sports 90 percent of the time. It
plays a big part in our perceptions. Its hard for people to think anything of women sports when
they get the same attention as the D-League of NBA.

Robert Tyler
UWRT 1102-003
Professor Carty
Final Draft
Women are barely presented to the media and when they are it is a lot of times in a
negative way. Women rarely get on the front of magazines or in commercials for sports and
when they do make it they are presented as sex icons instead of the athletes they are. The
commercials that come on during sports programming are directed towards male viewers and
women rarely appear in any of these commercials. When women are in the commercials they are
portrayed in stereotypical ways. When women are presented to the media they sometimes are
shown as rewards for men who choose the right product. Women are presented as things men
like or will take a certain action to have instead of giving the women a lead role in mass media.
Women are a lot of times presented this way because of the cultural stereotypes that has been
around so long. Mass media will make it look like women are taking the back seat to men in
media and in sports jest because the amount of attention they get in media. Media really puts the
man in the main role a lot of the time and women take the back seat in sports and media
coverage. When women get the lime light they are not shown through mass media as the
professional athletes they are but as sex icons or as soft-core pornography actors. Women are
highly misrepresented through the media and this kind of make women look bad and it gives you
a totally wrong impression. It is a very negative look towards women and has major societal
effects, including gender inequity. America is given the impression through media that women
value lies in their beauty and sexuality. Women also are portrayed as less intelligent counterparts
to men. As far as media women kindness of heart, and their intelligence is completely irrelevant.
If women fall short of being beautiful to the media or fails to have sexual attractiveness to the
media all of their other traits are forgotten. Women only represent 49 percent of the television

Robert Tyler
UWRT 1102-003
Professor Carty
Final Draft
population. They only represent 32 percent of the main characters on television shows. Women
are shown as being motivated primarily romantic love and as being less independent as men.
Females in media are nearly always conventionally attractive, thinner than average women in
real life, and heavily sexualized. Media has it set up where young girls grow up seeing women
in the media as weaker than males, highly sexualized, and sometimes gold diggers.
With young girls seeing this on a daily basis it kind of gives them impressions on how
women are in this society in today times. Women live in society now where they are highly
stereotyped and looked down on. While being looked down on they are also portrayed as highly
sexual icons to the world. Women live in a world now where they are stereotyped,
misrepresented, and downgraded every day. Women dont get nearly the amount of recognition
that men get. When they do get the lime light its in a negative way and they are always related
to something sexual. Women take pride in what they do and should get the same amount of
recognition as men and represented the right way.

Robert Tyler
UWRT 1102-003
Professor Carty
Final Draft

Works Citied

Duncan, Margaret. Gender Bias In Televised Sports. Fairness &

Accuracy In Reporting. Nigel Parry. Jan 1992. Web. 27 October 2014.
Coakley, Jay Conley, Dalton. The Great Gender Debate. Sociological
Perspectives: Gender Bias in Sports Coverage. United States Sports
Authority. 15 Nov 2012. Web. 27 October 2014.
Collins, Sarah. Gender Discrimination in Sports. LiveStrong.com.
LiveStrong Foundation. 13 Oct 2013. Web. 27 October 2014.

Duncan, Margaret Messner, Michael Williams, Linda Jensen, Kerry.

Gender Stereotyping In Televised Sports. LIFE READY THROUGH
SPORT. LA84 Foundation. Web. 27 October 2014.