Misogyny in sports includes different discourses, actions, and ideologies present in various sporting environments that add, reinforce, or normalize the objectification, degrading, shaming, or absence of women in athletics.
Male bias Misogyny can be defined as dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women."Misogyny." Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misogyny. It can be seen in many ways, including hostility, sex discrimination, social exclusion, and disparity in media coverage. Nineteenth century views of women's involvement in sports gave the impression they were absent altogether. Most of the discussion was centered around middle- and upper-class white women and their health concerns to the exclusion of all other groups.Daniels, Dayna B. You Throw Like a Girl: Sport and Misogyny on the Silver Screen Film & History (2005): n. pag. Web. 2 March 2015.
Women's participation in sports during the next century grew across the board, but there remains an undertone that women do not belong, including calling into question their sexuality or femininity.
The sexism experienced by women in sports also tends to be more overt than sexism in other workplaces and organizational settings. For example, in more recent years, champion tennis player Serena Williams has been verbally attacked for her appearance while wrestler Ronda Rousey has been constantly questioned about her sexuality. Sexist remarks made in many workplaces have been discouraged by displays of social disapproval and the potential threat of organizational reprimand. This has forced misogynistic views to be more subtle in these settings, taking the form of microaggressions or remarks in the form of benevolent sexism. In the sports industry, in comparison, overt sexist remarks are still commonplace and tend to result in less public backlash than similar statements given in other settings.
In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. She was physically attacked by race official Jock Semple who tried to remove her from the race, yelling "Get the hell out of my race." More recently, prominent sportswomen Serena Williams and Ronda Rousey, as well as Women's World Cup soccer players, have spoken out about misogyny in sport. Female sportswriters have also become more involved in the discussion, some to their peril. Journalist Julie Dicaro was personally attacked after she reported on rape allegations against Patrick Kane, the Chicago Blackhawks star player.
Demeaning language A 1993 study, conducted by Michael Messner, found that women were described with words like "girls" and "young women", while men were described with words like "young man" and "men", but never as "boys".Messner, Michael. "Reflections on Communication and Sport." Reflections on Communication and Sport. Sage Journals, 30 December 2012. Web. 12 March 2015.
Male dominating sport culture is continuously reinforced from a young age. Starting in little leagues and continuing up until the professional leagues, boys and young men are taught how they should behave on the field. Coaches and popular culture constantly deliver messages that emphasize hypermasculinity. They use aggressive language towards their players, telling them to "man up" or to stop "playing like pussies", or telling them that they throw/run/play like a girl. The worst thing to be called or compared to in sports is a woman, and it is the quickest way to cut someone down. In an interview with sports journalist Julie Dicaro, a man said, "no offense, but sports is where I go to get away from women". Demeaning statements like this about women only reinforce that the sports world is no place for a woman.
Gender gap Coverage in media The popularity of sports across the globe has not eliminated misogyny in sports coverage. Women's sports still suffer from lack of exposure.
Sports media is male dominant: 90.1% of editors and 87.4% of reporters are male. In televised media, approximately 95% of anchors and co-anchors are male. Women's sports have been underrepresented in comparison to men in their respective sports. Widespread gender discrepancies hamper the support and appreciation of female athletes in professional sports. Female athletes struggle to obtain the same degree of visibility and sponsorship opportunities as male athletes, whose accomplishments frequently dominate mainstream sports coverage. According to Cheryl Cooky's TEDx talk, a professor in American studies, gender, and sexuality at Purdue University, the marginalization of female athletes in mainstream sports media and sponsorship opportunities is nothing new. According to Cooky, female athletes need more visibility to ensure their access to necessary resources and financial security, which has an impact on their professional development.The Female Athlete: Missing in Action | Cheryl Cooky | TEDxPurdueU The support networks for female athletes are insufficient, which contributes to the persistence of the gender gaps that already exist in the sports sector. The NBA pays its players roughly 50% of the league's revenue, this includes media coverage, ticket sales, how profitable the brand is, and the revenue that comes from the sport itself which is split between all the teams. The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) pays its players less than 25%, specifically 22.8%, of the league's revenue. This revenue comes from coverage and game attendance. Game attendance has gone up in 2017 reaching its highest-grossing year with an average of 7,716 fans per game. "Gender & Society. "Gender Bland Sexism in Sport." Gender & Society, 3 Nov. 2017, gendersociety.wordpress.com/2017/10/05/gender-bland-sexism-in-sport/. Despite having an increase in fans, the WNBA is not getting the same coverage as the NBA which adversely affects their salaries. In 2014, ESPN paid the WNBA $17 million for broadcast rights but yet only 2% of airtime on SportsCenter, their flagship show, was allocated to women sports with an even smaller percentage being given to the WNBA. The WNBA was forced to broadcast a livestream of 17 games in order to reach fan bases and garner media attention. Roughly 95% of sports content in media is focused on men, despite women making up 40% of all sports participants.
The quality of the stories and coverage themselves is also significantly lower than the men, including gag stories involving sexual dialogue or emphasizing the female bodies. Regarding the games themselves, the women have lower quality, editing mistakes, and fewer camera angles with fewer commentators. A longitudinal study conducted by researchers from Purdue University and University of Southern California of media coverage in sports and the differences found between males and females. Since the start of the 1980s, women's sports have had lower production quality while broadcasting, according to the study's author Toni Bruce.Bruce Toni. 2015. Assessing the sociology of sport: On media and representations of sportswomen. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 50:380-84. This was done by using lower sound quality, lower graphic quality, and fewer camera angles which presents women's sports as less dramatic and less entertaining. As well as low quality broadcasting, in almost every story of a male team or male player there is an interview or analysis done by a professional athlete or commentator as compared to 1/3 of the stories on female athletes or teams include interviews. Another study found that, between 1989 and 2000 sexist language was often used to describe female athletes and teams, sexualizing them and focusing on their families. From about the mid-2000s, language turned "gender bland", promoting a sexist slant by means of unenthusiastic recitals of performance, lending a lackluster patina to them as compared to men's. The researchers suggest that gender bland sexism elevates men with more entertaining language so that they garner more followers and media attention, taking the spotlight off female sports. The dominant language which plays a major role in media coverage of men's sports is largely absent in female sports coverage. Commentators talk more about statistics which, according to the study, were uninteresting. A lot of stories about women are also what audiences consider gag stories. In one example, SportsCenter ran a 13-second story on a "weightlifting granny". The researchers suggest that the prevalence of such stories undermines the standing of women in sports.
Pay gap
The pay gap can be defined as the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men within the economy as a whole."PAY GAP | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary." PAY GAP | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/pay-gap. Of the Forbes 100 most paid athletes only one is a female, Serena Williams, who lands at number 51. Williams, however, is the highest paid female athlete according to data based in the year 2017. Within the sport of tennis, according to The New York Times, women make an average of 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. This pay gap matches the current pay gap in the workplace throughout America as well. This difference means that roughly the 15th best male player makes almost $120,500 more than a female with the same ranking. In 2018, according to The Guardian, 71% of the world's top men earn more in prize money than females who have their same ranking. Between 2010 and 2014 the US Women's Open final drew a larger audience than the men. The 2007 Wimbledon Championships was the first tournament that offered equal prize money for male and female athletes. This may be the case during televised events and the grand slams, women are still not receiving as much in middle- and low- tier events; the most popular rationalization being that men play longer. The pay gap does not only happen while they are playing but occurs after when they make appearances on television as a tennis expert. In 2017 BBC had to disclose their pay salaries and it was found that Navratilova was paid roughly $15,000 for her assignment whereas her male counterpart, an equally as good tennis player, received between $150,000 and $200,000 for a similar assignment. The pay gap also spans to endorsements in tennis with Maria Sharapova grossing $23 million in endorsements and Roger Federer grossing $65 million, which is nearly triple. Males earn more in endorsements while getting paid more than females which shows a bias based on gender within the sport. Tennis remains as the one sport that has the most comparable and fair pay between men and women. Tennis receives the most female media coverage out of any other sport and is growing rapidly in popularity. According to Forbes, eight of the top ten best paid women athletes are tennis players.