By: Marie Hardin and Stacie Shain
Thirty years after Title IX some thirteen percent of employees are women, a 2001 study showed. And more recently there are only eleven percent of women employed in the sports department; with some having no women at all! There has been increasing numbers according to ASNE but the average length for a woman is only ten years with none reaching management levels/ranks. In most cases women aren't hired because they are different and don't "fit" the role for numerous reasons, according to Joanne Gerstner.
Literature Review
Women face discrimination and harassment and deal with it not only in the locker rooms but also in the workplace. One survey also stated that salary inequality and lack of promotion were big problems for women. They aren't as respected as men and a survey revealed that seventy-two percent of women indicated that they considered leaving their job. "Although it has been desegregated, it has not been integrated." Women are still viewed at outsiders. Work-family balance persists as a gender defined dividing line, not just male dominated work places. The duties of women in a familial role are much higher than a males and it puts women in a double-bind that they are caught in. Women argue that these are barriers to career growth.
Research Questions
Women journalists were gathered for focus groups to answer three very important research questions. The findings were that there are a range of experiences in newsrooms. Answers to question one found that women found their career choice to be gratifying and rewarding. Also found it to be important, fun and a rush. They felt like they needed to spread the word more because it is so rewarding and exciting. Answers to question two found a distinction between career satisfaction and job satisfaction. They did not transfer the barriers of discrimination and harassment to overall satisfaction with sports journalism as a career. Lack of respect for females among male colleagues and readers, "I hate the job, but I love what I do." Question three answers found that the discrimination that limited their promotions was most frustrating. "We got our zebra in the zoo, and that's good enough." There is a constant pressure to prove themselves. Demands on time and strain on family were the primary reasons women cited for leaving the industry. Women bear more of a caregiver responsibility than men. Powerful women on top don't have families. For the most part the participants saw the work-family challenges they faced were their individual responsibility to resolve. Not having a work daycare came up a lot, along with other employees not being flexible in assigning hours and responsibilities towards women, especially when they have children.
Discussions and Conclusions
Harassment and discrimination are very prevalent but not main reasons for leaving their job. No promotion or lack of the ability to move up is worth giving up a social life. There is still need for integration for women to be successful and well respected.
"Gender in Sports Writing"
By: Edward M. Kian
Mass media has the potential to shape, change and re-enforce values and attitudes. Studies have shown that we favor male sports over women's and more importantly that the coverage of sports has created a masculine hegemonic order in society. The masculinity is favored over femininity so an in-depth interview was conducted to view and understand the attitudes toward gender.
Female Representation
Like the last article of this week, there is a huge lack of women in the sport media profession, with even fewer in positions of power. A study showed, however, that top ten newspapers had more women employees and the more circulation of a paper the higher percentage of women they had. The number and percentage has gone up but the women working hold jobs lesser than that of men for example, support staff and clerks.
Attitudes and Experiences
Cramer found that women do not want to report on female sports because there is little room for advancement and because of the perceived lack of interest in women's sports. Another study showed that women expressed high job satisfaction but are frustrated with opportunities of advancement because it seems and is nearly impossible. An interesting find was that fifty-nine percent of surveyed sport editors felt the need to have female representation on their staff. That's a huge amount of editors who feel the opposite, which to me is very surprising, especially if you relate it to the study that found that top ten papers had more women workers.
This articles study included six reporters, three males and three females, and questioned them about gender-related experiences and attitudinal differences in regards to women's sports.
Three major themes came up that reinforced the idea that sports writers grow up in a masculine hegemonic world and that it holds true after entry into the profession.
The first theme was that society is structured so that males get into sports writing. All six interviewees grew up sports fans of male sports over women's, and there was a general perception that attitudes favoring men's sports are ingrained into the culture. The men dreamed and were encouraged to become sports journalists at young ages while the women did not and said it was an accident that it even happened.
The second theme, generalized, was that after entering the profession men are treated as the "standard" in sports writing and women are considered "the other." The underlying themes that supported this are first, males believe women receive preferential hiring because of their sex. Women reporters perceive that they are treated well by coworkers if they act like one of the guys. Management assigns different types of assignments to women based on psychological stereotypes. Women are treated worse by their sources. Overall, all the men believe that women are at a disadvantage in the profession. The article goes on to show contradicting stories where women got the job because of their sex and on how they were treated because of being a woman. There was no clear finding that related to one argument over another. It goes on to talk about how women are treated in locker rooms and how readers or listeners react to women voices in surprise. Nothing too crazy especially compares to twenty or thirty years ago when women had to fight just to get into the locker room, although there is still discrimination against women today. Getting right to the point about this second theme was captured in this quote, "It’s just that the hypothetical fan is a male, the hypothetical athlete is a male, and because of that I think the hypothetical sportswriter is a male." The third theme suggests that once they enter the media profession, , female and male sportswriters generally exhibit and convey similar overall attitudes toward women’s and men’s sports. There is an overall negative attitude towards women's sports throughout most newspaper sports departments. There is also a huge perception that readers and viewers want to see mostly male sports coverage. And mainly, since the newspaper sport journalism is a competitive industry, newspapers need to capture as many readers and viewers as possible so they will put out what sells, which is mainly male sports coverage. They cannot afford to lose the money that they are already losing anyway. And lastly, men and women don't want to cover women's sports because there is so little room for advancement when you cover this topic. "Finally, all the writers interviewed except for Cox said that covering mainly women’s sports would significantly diminish or at least hinder a writer’s chance of advancing their career."
This is an interesting quote from the third theme section, “You really –
especially at my paper – have to struggle to get women’s sports covered in the paper,” she
said. “At the beginning, you really push for it. But at this point, I don’t even push for it
anymore.”
But overall I thought this article was a huge waste! What is six people going to tell us about this topic. There were no conclusions to be made and more importantly I felt like there was no reason for this interview. All the things mentioned have already been found, why not try and find ways to make a change instead of dwelling on what everyone knows is already happening. Very boring read to be honest.
Mark Valeriano
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