Misogyny in Sports: How Female Athletes’ Underrepresentation Negatively Affects Their Public Image

As half of the world’s population, women are overly sexualized in the sports industry, with their accomplishments constantly being dismissed, and essentially being told that they don’t matter as much as men. In this English Honors thesis, under the direction of Professor Nupoor Ranade, I demonstrate through close reading the lack of representation female athletes receive in media. The media types I discuss include sports news, sport magazine covers, and general social media. This lack of representation comes from society underemphasizing women’s achievements both in daily life and in the athletic world, and rather focusing on what men accomplish. I explore the ways in which female athletes are portrayed in sports news, if at all, and how they are sexualized on the covers of popular sports magazines, such as ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated. Following the lack of honest portrayal of female accomplishments is how these athletes respond to the discrimination. An example is Togethxr, created by women for women to provide a social media platform to highlight women’s achievements and provide opportunities for young girls to have role models to look up to. The underrepresentation, as well as the misrepresentation, creates negative consequences for female athletes, including low pay and a bad social image. The disregard of female athletes’ achievements and lack of proper portrayal is a harsh reality of our society, but women have learned how to fight back and advocate for their own accomplishments.

Keywords: women, representation, sport, gender discrimination, media

Hello everyone! My name is Ellie Van Tassel, and I will be presenting my English Honors thesis, which I wrote under the direction of Professor Nupoor Ranade. I will be discussing the sexism and misogyny that is present in professional women’s sports and how this correlates to their lack of funding and support. Throughout my research, I conducted close readings of multiple different types of media and writing, including sports news, sports magazines, and social media. I found that each type of media participates some way in diminishing the accomplishments by female athletes and consistently emphasizing those done by males. Throughout this video, I will be presenting examples I found through my research.
When looking at sports news, stories on male athletes take up most coverage and are often repeated for new viewers tuning in. Women’s sports stories are few and rare, and when they are shown, the reporter assigned to it often delivers the news in a dull, monotone voice. The lack of excitement for the delivery of the story results in a lack of excitement for those watching and prevents any new support from emerging. When female athletes are covered in the news, the report tends to focus more on their body or age rather than on their accomplishment. The video example I have here is of Chloe Kim winning her first gold medal in snowboarding at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Listen to what the reporter says about her. PLAY VIDEO. Now, she was 17 at the time, but neither her age, nor her body, should have anything to do with her winning a gold medal. She is also wearing a full snowboarding suit, which is hiding what her body looks like. The reporter choosing to focus on her body and her “ass” shows how little her accomplishment means, simply because she’s a woman.
Moving on to sports magazines, women are much more likely to be sexualized on the covers compared to men. The two most popular sports magazines are ESPN and Sports Illustrated. When looking at the differences between how women and men are portrayed on the cover, focus on the pose they’re in, what clothes they’re wearing, and what the cover line includes. I have three examples here, two from ESPN and one from Sports Illustrated. Right away, you can see the difference in how Serena Williams is posed compared to Stephen Curry and Simone Biles. Her skin is exposed, she’s posed sexually on a throne, and nowhere on the cover does it mention the sport she plays (which is tennis). Simone’s picture shows some skin and her pose places emphasis on her body, but she is at least dressed in a leotard, which is the uniform for her sport. But her sport is also not mentioned. Meanwhile, Stephen Curry is posed in an action shot, in his jersey, using a basketball as a prop, his name is listed, and the word “hoop” is used, which relates to basketball. The two women are sexually emphasized through their pose and body while Curry is posed in relation to his sport.
Finally, we move on to social media. The examples here are tweets, both from the 2016 Summer Olympics. On the left is Simone Manuel holding her 2016 Olympic gold medal on the podium for her performance in swimming. Instead of referencing her, Mercury News chose only to refer to her as “African-American” and mentioned Michael Phelps instead, another American swimmer, who is nowhere in the photo. On the left is Corey Cogdell, an American trap shooter, holding her bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics. Her own name, or sport, are not mentioned in the caption, but rather her achievement is written as if it is due to her relation to a man. Both captions fail to correctly address the women being shown in the photos and rather mentions male athletes who have no correlation to the accomplishments achieved by both Simone Manuel and Corey Cogdell.
Lastly, given everything that is stacked against female athletes, majority choose to fight against the odds and advocate for themselves and for their accomplishments to be noticed. Chloe Kim, Sue Bird, Simone Manuel, and Alex Morgan co-founded Togethxr, a digital social media platform that highlights the next generation of women in sports by telling their stories with an air of representation and equality. This platform is founded by women for women because these athletes understand how important it is for the younger generation of female athletes to have role models to look up to. Similarly, the Representation Project created the hashtag RespectHerGame. This project uses media to challenge and call out harmful gender norms and stereotypes. The hashtag was created to call out Olympic coverage in 2021 for its sexism, specifically broadcasters and news anchor so reports, such as the one on Chloe Kim in 2018, don’t happen again.
So, why should we care? Women make up almost half of the world’s population. By dismissing their accomplishments in any industry, society is essentially saying that half of the population does not matter. The examples of sexualization in this presentation provides a basic idea of how negative representations can have real world consequences. The sports industry can be a good place to start to change this misogynistic and sexualized way of looking at women. Companies like Togethxr and The Representation Project are already working toward promoting positivity towards female athletes. Since these companies are smaller, real change will not happen until the bigger sports companies follow their lead.
Thank you for listening!