Women, media and sport
By Danielle Woolage
The serious lack of media coverage allocated to women's sport continues to enforce the long-held belief that the sporting field is a masculine arena and that women are not as skilful nor as worthy in sport as their male counterparts. A report by the Australian Sports Commission showed women's sport receives only 1.2% of all air time devoted to sport; in newspapers the coverage was 4.5%.
When sportswomen do receive coverage, more mention is often made of their personal life than their athletic ability. The emphasis on femininity and fashion ensures that what women wear and look like when they play sport is deemed to be of more importance than what they achieve.
This can be seen in sports articles published 40 years ago — and not a lot has changed since. The media today are more interested in Lisa Curry Kenny's relationship with Grant and whether she'll "break the iron man curse by producing a male baby" than her sporting prowess.
The introduction of television in 1956 further served to trivialise women's sport. Individual sportswomen received a limited coverage which was more concerned with a saturation of their personal lives than skilful achievements.
Even now, few women's sports receive live coverage; viewing is usually restricted to edited highlights outside of prime viewing hours. The technical aspects of women's sports' coverage is also inferior: former Australian Netball Captain, Anne Sargent, believes that camera coverage to improve angles, multiple cameras and instant replays, not offered to women's sport, would improve viewing numbers and therefore ratings.
Commercial television stations argue that they only reflect the community's wishes. But if sports coverage is technologically second rate, the case with women's sport, then it's not surprising that low ratings will result. This is then used by stations as their justification for not covering women's sport.
Sportswomen are also lose out in relation to sponsorship and facilities. Without a media profile, sportswomen have little chance of enticing lucrative sponsorship, and without a sponsor, they will not receive media coverage.
Not only do women receive less corporate sponsorship, the allocation of prize money is also grossly unequal. In November 1990, professional surfer Wendy Botha objected to the way in which prize money was allocated in a World Tour surf event in Newcastle. Her grounds for objection were justifiable. She stated "Ninety-nine percent of the time we get a quarter of what men get. We surf the same waves and do the same training ... The winning woman received $4585 while the winning male got $13,100".
In the Geelong triathlon, in November 1984, the first male competitor received two return tickets to Hawaii; the first woman received a bicycle.
Sportswomen are usually forced to endure second rate facilities. A male journalist who sought the opinion of a women's sports team for a pre-match comment was told it would be fine as long as he didn't mind sitting in the front seat of the changing room — the player's car. The back seat was being used for changing.
In order for female athletes to obtain the corporate dollar, sponsors insist that they look glamorous and feminine. As a result, women are trapped into emphasising femininity, the very weapon which has been used to keep them out of sport.
Danielle Drady, an Australian champion squash player and ranked second in the world, needed to put herself on public display with a "For Sale" sign around her neck to attract sponsorship. It was evident that her exceptional skills were not enough; she had to market her feminine image also.
A derogatory pictorial spread of Danielle in Inside Sport titled "Racketeering" does everything but hint at the injustice of sponsorship portfolios which forced Danielle to increase her exposure.
The article states: "Drady was so desperate to nab a sponsor for a fresh assault on the women's tour that she wrapped herself in cling film, had a "For Sale" sign strung around her neck and posed for the daily rags and A Current Affair. She played a competition match in a glass court in Sydney's Martin Place wearing a plastic bodysuit."
Most Australians are probably only recently aware that Australia has a women's basketball team, the Opals. This awareness can be attributed not only to their finishing fourth in the world championships, but also to the body-hugging uniforms the team members wear.
If the Australian women's basketball team want lucrative sponsorship deals, which would lead to increased media coverage and vice versa, they need to be packaged as a saleable commodity. A jewelry company sponsorship meant that the most attractive team members appeared on a commercial draped in jewelry — and still clad in their figure-hugging uniforms.
Women athletes are undoubtedly disempowered by Australian capitalist sporting culture.