From Dave Zirin’s interview with Mike Messner, USC professor of sociology and gender studies
Edited excerpt, notes of note by Carolyn Bennett
Decrease in women’s leagues and play coverage
Amidst a continuing rise in participation and interest in women’s sports, Messner and Zirin say TV news and highlights shows consciously fail to keep pace.
“In 1989 and 1999, the big chunk of women’s sports coverage we [saw] on these shows was what we called insulting or trivialization or humorous sexualization of women athletes ─ e.g., a nude bungee jumper or leering court reports on tennis players like [Russian-born American] Anna Kournikova or later [former World No. 1 Russian] Maria Sharapova.
“In 2004 and 2009, those kinds of stories declined to the point where we saw almost none of that insulting stuff about women athletes but … when [sports reporters stopped] doing insulting or humorous sexualization stories on women athletes, it seems they don’t know how to talk about women and women sports at all.”
Dearth, insult, ridicule motive
Boys club mind, institutional sexism, subconscious or conscious decisions (?)
“[Broadcasters] make conscious decisions about what they cover everyday but … there is a tremendous amount of inertia as well.
“Only a part of it has to do with the fact [that] men are making most of these decisions. Men are capable of doing good sports reporting on women’s sports and a lot of men really like women’s sports but many of these reporters fear not staying with Big Three sports.”
Source and notes
“The Dramatic Drop in Women’s Sports Coverage: A Dave Zirin Interview with Mike Messner,” a professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California (USC). Dave Zirin is author of Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love, http://edgeofsports.com/2010-07-06-548/index.html
August 9, 2010, on Women’s Magazine … part of a speech by Dave Zirin on women and sports given at the 2009 Socialism Conference in San Francisco … program segments available at kpfawomensmag.blogspot.com, http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/63157
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