Gender Bias in Televised Sports
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When CBS and ESPN covered the 1989 college basketball championships,
commentators and graphics referred to the men's events as "The Final
Four" and "The NCAA National Championship Game," while viewers were
constantly reminded that they were watching the "Women's Final Four"
and the "NCAA Women's National Championship Game."
This presentation of women's games as derivative of a male standard
signaled a consistent presentation of female athletics as inferior,
according to a study of sports journalism sponsored by the Amateur
Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles that examined these basketball and
tennis events. (The study was conducted by Margaret Carlisle Duncan,
Michael Messner, Linda Williams and Kerry Jensen.)
The way commentators referred to men and women athletes contrasted
dramatically. In the tennis and basketball games studied, women were
referred to as "girls," as well as "young ladies" or "women." Men,
however, were never referred to as "boys," but as "men," "young men" or
"young fellas."
When commentators identified an athlete by first name alone, the
athlete was far more likely to be female than male, particularly in
tennis (e.g. "Martina" [Navratilova], "Zena" [Garrison] "Steffi"
[Graf]). When men were referred to by first names only, the players
were always men of color ("Rumeal" [Robinson], "Ramon" [Ramos]). White
male basketball players were never referred to by just their first
names. (See chart.)
Linguists have often found that members of dominant social groups are
called by their last names and refer to others by first names. In
sports, the practice reduces female athletes and athletes of color to
the role of children, while giving adult status to white male
athletes.
The descriptions of athletes in the events studied also varied by
gender. 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.
When women were described as strong, it was often done in ambivalent
language: "big girl," "she's tiny, she's small, but so effective," "her
little jump hook," etc. There was little ambivalence in the
descriptions of men: These were "big" guys with "big" forehands who
played "big games."
Descriptions of men's play was filled with martial imagery--words and
phrases like "bangs in," "ambushed," "explode," "battles," "attack,"
"firepower," "duel," "shootout" and so on. Commentators used such
language twice as often in men's as in women's tennis, and three times
as much in men's as in women's basketball. Descriptions of women's
sports were less evocative of power: Where a male basketball player
might "crash through" the defense, a woman would be "moving against"
the defense. While a man "attacks" the hoop, a woman might "go to" the
hoop. Where men "misfire," women simply "miss."
Women were more likely to be framed as failures due to some combination
of nervousness, lack of confidence, lack of "being comfortable," lack
of aggression and lack of stamina. Men were far less often described as
failures--men appeared to miss shots and lose matches not so much
because of their individual shortcomings, but because of the power,
strength and intelligence of their male opponents.
Margaret Carlisle Duncan is a professor of human kinetics at the
University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee. She was an investigator for the
Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles' study, "Gender Stereotyping
in Televised Sports." The study is available from the foundation at
2141 W. Adams Blvd., L.A., CA 90018.
Names Used in Tennis Commentary(1989 U.S. Open finals)
First Name Only: Men, 44 (8%); Women, 304 (53%)Last Name Only: Men, 395
(70%); Women, 166 (29%)First and Last Name: Men, 127 (22%); Women, 107
(19%)
Sources
