Comments on: “Just Noticing:” Observations of a Blogger

By: Gwen

Gwen — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:09:19 +0000

Another example of the sexualization of female athletes is ESPN’s Body Issue, which displays nude photographs of Olympic athletes. While the idea seems good — shooting the athletes nude could very effectively highlight the strength of their incredible bodies — the photographs overwhelmingly depict men in active poses, whereas over half of the women are depicted in passive, pin-up type poses.

Unfortunately, the Body Issue fails to move beyond the default depiction of women as passive objects — because the women are standing still, the fact that they are naked is more important than the fact that they are athletes.

By: Heidi

Heidi — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:07:30 +0000

Michelle, you are so right. Here are two clear cases of unequal treatment based on gender. The Japanese women’s soccer team and the Australian women’s soccer and basketball teams were relegated to economy while their male counterparts flew business class. This is despite the fact that the women’s teams are ranked higher and have played better in the past. The Japanese women’s soccer team won the World Cup last summer, and is favored to win a gold medal this year. Similarly, the Australian women’s basketball and soccer teams have much higher international rankings than the men’s teams. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the women’s basketball team “won silver medals at the last three Olympics, and won bronze in 1996. The Boomers [the men’s team] have never won an Olympics medal.”

The former captain of the women’s basketball team weighed in, saying she knows it’s about gender: “It’s been a bit of a sore spot, especially since the women are much more successful.

I’m yet to find a nice answer for it other than they’re male and we’re female. You’d hate that that’s the reason, but I’m sure it is.”

It won’t stop until the women demand equality like the women tennis players did when they refused to play until they received equal pay to the men.

By: Turnner

Turnner — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:03:25 +0000

I’m British. Sigh, not this again. Female coverage falls show of male simply because people prefer to witness the best – be it indivuals, teams or entire leagues. Most female athletes can’t cater for this demand.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:01:23 +0000

Anyone watching women win one third of all British medals in the 2012 Olympic games and elite sportswomen such as Jessica Ennis-Hill and Nicola Adams become household names would be forgiven for expecting the nation’s newspapers to transform their coverage of women’s sports in subsequent years. Yet a report out on Thursday shows how wrong anyone would be.

Research from Birmingham University reveals that six of our national newspapers actually produced fewer stories about women’s sports a year on from the Olympics than they did before. In total, stories about men’s sports outnumbered those about women’s sports by 20 to one in March 2013 in six national titles – the Sun, Mirror, Times, Telegraph, Mail and Express.

By: Dhuthi

Dhuthi — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:58:51 +0000

Ritu Rani, India’s inspirational former women’s hockey captain, was dropped from the Olympics-bound squad on grounds of attitude and fitness. But the former men’s skipper Sardar Singh, accused of rape, appears to enjoy the support of the mandarins of sport and made the Rio cut. The tale of the two captains reeks of gender bias.