Monday, 19 November 2018
Wednesday, 14 November 2018
What is a stereotype
A stereotype is a generalised view or preconception about attributes or characteristics that are possessed by a member of a particular social group or the roles that are or should be performed by them.
Trolan Text
The impact of the media on gender inequality within sport
Eoin J.Trolan 2013 useful quotes to use
according to Perderson (2002) the media is one of the most influential forms of socialisation in today’s society in generating gender values.
Indeed, the mass media plays a significant role in the transmission of gender differences and inequality through daily visuals within print and television media. Individuals are inundated with magazines, and newspapers containing photographs and narratives of what it means to be a woman or man, and more specifically, the gender imbalance between men and women. These gender role differences are especially apparent in the world of sport.
While, women have gained ground in the non-sporting realm, within the confines they are still viewed as women first and athletes second, while, their male counterparts have no such concerns.
sport has traditionally been regarded primarily as a male territory and there is still a fascination on the female body of an athlete
Messner (1988) argued that women are moving into a new era in which women athletes are no longer viewed as sex objects or
Research has shown that the underrepresentation and the sexualization of women athletes are still prominent.
Wenner (1998) men represent the norm and women represent the “other”
the media is an institution that preserves the power of men over women (Hargreaves, 1994)
Boutiler and San-Giovanni (1983), who analysed Sports Illustrated covers over a period of 34 years. The authors found that sportswomen represented less than 5 percent of all covers and that these women engaged in socially acceptable sports. These findings are still prevalent today in many sports magazines and the sport pages of newspapers.
Sports that were generally specific for men were contact sports, such as football or rugby and these types of sports
While for women, it was sports which emphasised grace and aesthetic appeal that were considered acceptable for media coverage
Though women have always been physically active throughout the centuries they have constantly been restricted by society.
such as the strict Victorian age, women were seen as fragile, frail, and sickly, and being aggressive and athletic was not part of their ideology. Men viewed females as sexual objects:
young girls ride, skate, dance in moderation, but let them leave field sports to those for whom they were intended for - men.” (Mangan 1987, 158)
Athleticism, according to Koivula (2001), is often linked to, and interpreted, as muscularity, and therefore often squared with power and masculinity.
if you are a female athlete and you want to get attention, the way to do that is play the sex card, the problem with that strategy is whether it translates into success over time. (O’keefe, 2000)
print media focused on the physical appearance of women athletes much more than their athletic skills and abilities. These studies referenced hair, make-up, and body shape for the women but rarely if ever focused on the same things for men.
women who played sports were viewed as “manly” or lesbians.
When women athletes were successful and athletic they were labeled as lesbians. Blinde (1991) stated that by labelling powerful women as lesbians, is an attempt to ostracise and dis-empower them.
Tuggle and Owen (1999) in their study of the Olympics found that television emphasized individual sports such as swimming and diving and paid no attention to physical contact sports. In fact, the authors found that almost twice the amount of airtime went to women’s non -contact individual sports compared to team sports. This finding was similar to those by Jones, Murrell, and Jackson (1999) whose results stated that women playing appropriate gender related sports had the highest coverage.
The lack of coverage or acknowledgement of women’s sports and athletes leads the sport consumer to believe that women’s sports and athletes are not important and not worthy of being covered.
underrepresentation of women athletes (Eastman & Billings, 2000; Vincent, Johnson, Imwold, & Massey, 2003). Kian (2007)
Olympics found that television emphasised individual sports such as swimming and diving and paid no attention to physical contact sports
excluded from coverage because of their failure to conform.
Tennis is given a higher media coverage because it remains true to the classification of what is socially acceptable. It is a non-contact sport where the athletes maintain strict standards of femininity,
yet both print and television media trivialize the women athletes by suggesting they are not real athletes. Vincent (2004) examined coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships and found that journalist trivialized women athlete’s both with their photographic poses and captions accompanying them.
female athletes were continually called by their first names or as “girl” or “young lady” and these inferences suggest an infantilisation of the women athlete. This practice of calling men by their last names or “young men” shows a hierarchal of naming, where men are given the dominant role, and women are familiarised.
Western culture is the embodiment of masculinity and that the feminine ideal body contrasts with the idea of what it means to be a female athlete. In particular, the authors stated that sportswomen live in two distinctly separate cultures, the sporting culture and their larger culture where they must deal with the continual clash between being an athlete and a woman.
From an early age men and women are socialised differently. Men are taught to play sports or watch sports by many different agents such as family, peers
sporting activities are only for men.
underrepresentation, trivialisation, and sexualization of women athletes.
devalued the concept of women athletes by proclaiming women as inferior to men and it has only been within the last thirty to forty years that women have challenged this myth and made the idea of women athletes in sports a possible reality.
masculine sports and team sports are covered in less in both print media and television.
male athletes were recognised for having more physical skill,
knowledge, and strategy, while the women athletes were denied these elements
women made mistakes it was down to emotional difficulties, yet when men made mistakes it was down to unfortunate luck.
It is important to note that language plays a significant role within how the consumers interpret gender
Women athletes who are less glamorous get less attention from the media than those who are. The highlighting of the femininity of athlete focuses on the non-athletic achievement
When the media emphasises women as attractive and feminine this shifts attention from their skills to their looks and minimises the threat these women pose to the male dominance of sport
Ideologies such as women having softer and contact, and women who do participate in these sports are not “real” women.
the idea of women having a biologically inferior body has been extensively used to justify the exclusion of females in certain sports and influence the idea that women who chose masculine sports are promoting lesbianism and other unfeminine traits. The female body continues to be identified as an object.
women were required to overcompensate for their masculinity as an athlete. Women athletes often find themselves in the double bind of maintaining traditional standards of femininity while their sport demands they overcome them or over emphasises them.
heterosexually attractive. In his study of print media coverage of Wimbledon, the extensive coverage given to former tennis star Anna Kournikova highlighted this concept. With her scantily clad figure and Eurocentric features she was the most photographed athlete. Throughout the text accompanying the photographs there were numerous references to her family life, boyfriends, nightlife and not her skill or athletic ability.
the media remains focused on her body and continues to refer to her using language such as beautiful young girl, soft skin and flowing locks of hair, all of which have nothing to do with her skills as an athlete.
perpetuated the fear associated with lesbians and lesbianism and reinforces the idea that women athletes should be feminine to succeed.
femininity, where dress codes and appearance are often imposed by coaches, sponsors or the media (Jex, 2000).
Women athletes do not get that much attention, that is until they use their body for attention. To illustrate this, before the 2007 Women’s football World Cup, members of the australian national team appeared in a men’s magazine naked.
Four years later, just before the 2011 women’s soccer world cup, the German National team posed naked in Playboy and again they stated that they did this to promote the World Cup.
Sports have utilised shorter skirts, tighter tops, encourage weight loss and grooming to sell women’s sports as sexually appealing to the general public.
When women are actually shown in active poses in newspapers, magazines, or the internet, usually the text would portray them as passive and decorative objects (Duncan and Hasbrook, 1988).
Monday, 12 November 2018
How Headlines Change the Way We Think
(M. Konnikova, 2014)
Everyone knows that a headline determines how many people will read a piece, particularly in this era of social media. But, more interesting, a headline changes the way people read an article and the way they remember it.
By drawing attention to certain details or facts, a headline can affect what existing knowledge is activated in your head. By its choice of phrasing, a headline can influence your mindset as you read so that you later recall details that coincide with what you were expecting.
What makes people trust the news
(S. Sundar, 2016)
The persuasive appeal of peers over experts is compounded by the fact that we tend to let our guard down even more when we encounter news in our personal space. Increasingly, most of our online destinations – whether they’re portal sites (such as Yahoo News and Google News), social media sites, retail sites or search engines – have tools that allow us to customize the site, tailoring it to our own interests and identity (for example, choosing a profile photo or a news feed about one’s favorite sports team).
The media and sports symbiotic relationship constructs and utilizes gender stereotypes to maintain gender inequality and gender differences, both actively through written words and passively through photographs. Sport sells mass media and media sells sport, therefore, the media has biased coverage because it assumes its consumers are men and aligns its coverage to suit its potential customers. Pederson (2002) eloquently stated the symbiotic relationship fosters the acceptance of masculinity as the defining character of Western society and the media create and reflect this hegemonic masculinity.
Exploring your mind.com
In addition to having the conscious desire to obtain information that is true, we have other unconscious motivations that make us try to (at least) check our beliefs. In this way, people will accept messages that satisfy these motivations as true, even when they’re false. The reverse can also happen. We can reject information because it doesn’t match our beliefs, even if it’s true.
people are more likely to believe and accept simplistic messages without a lot of scrutiny.
Similarly, people also believe messages that affirm that a specific thing is possible if those messages are consistent with what they want to believe.
a lack of knowledge can make people accept even the most extravagant news
Media, Minorities, and Meaning: A Critical Introduction
Why, as a society, are we inclined to accept media messages as truth?
The mass media reflect stereotypical beliefs about people, places and things that have their foundation in the pre-mass-mediated past.
From pictograms on cave walls to pixels on computer screens, human communication efforts display a ‘truth’ and ‘realiyty’ and a ‘world view’ which becomes the voice and vision of society reflected in its recorded words and images.
In Western society, the beneficiaries of the power and resources, those who author and/ or legitimise these expressions, have been and continue to be White, male, hetrosexual and middle class.
Sport in school
A survey of just over 1,500 school pupils revealed that only 12 per cent of girls are reaching the standard level of fitness by age 14 – half the rate for boys, which is itself alarmingly low at 24 per cent.
More than half (51 per cent) of the girls said they had been put off exercise at school because of negative experiences of sport and PE lessons.
In the survey, carried out by the Institute of Sport at Loughborough University for the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF), 45 per cent of girls said sport at school was "too competitive" and 48 per cent said being sweaty was "not feminine".
A third of the boys interviewed by researchers said girls who were sporty were not very feminine.
The report highlights the importance of physical activity in combating obesity – pointing out that research shows British women are the most obese in Europe and the UK falls behind the OECD average for physical activity among 11 to 15-year-olds.
Sue Tibballs, chief executive of WSFF, said: "Our research shows that school sport and PE is actually putting the majority of girls off being active, even though three-quarters of girls are keen to do more exercise.
Splitting up PE groups
Many teachers justify pushing girls into netball and boys towards football to avoid sexual harassment or discrimination.
But Dr Lawson said the “controlled environment” of the school playing field was the “best opportunity these potential adults have to learn to respect each other”.
The comments come amid a continuing debate over standards of childhood exercise and physical activity, particularly among girls.
Research published earlier this month by the University of Pennsylvania found that the brains of men and women were wired up differently which could explain some stereotypical male and female behaviour.
But Dr Lawson said many differences were down to cultural reasons, with school sport acting as one of the key barriers to equality.
“If everyone trains and competes on equal terms, the biologically slower can up their game, and if the fast naturally rise to the top no one should object,” she said. “If we aspire to believe in individual variation over stereotyping, and equality of opportunity, then why not let our children start with that?”
Early Nike Women’s Advertising a Feminist Antenarrative.
The Gender of Branding: Early Nike Women’s Advertising a Feminist Antenarrative.
From a branding perspective the ads function as living stories reflecting female experiences and providing its audience with "emotional promises”
Nikes women’s sub-brand that often challenged the social constructions of gender and sports.
In the early 1990s, female point of view was rarely reflected in advertising. While the creative team and Nike executives had the same objective of increasing market share among women, each had strongly differing views about how to achieve this.
In 1990 when the women’s sub-brand was launched, Nike was a brand positioned as the patriarch of all sports, with the “Just Do It” tagline defining that identity.
At the time of the launch of the women’s sub-brand, women’s professional sports were visually non-existent. Title IX, legislation passed in 1976 granting equal access to both genders in collegiate spots, was poorly implemented.
Nike the parent brand is the men’s brand with line extensions for each sport, while the women’s brand represents a single sub-brand.
In 1990 the sacred Nike parent brand was defined by its masculine emotion and promise… Masculine signifiers from sweating, muscle-bound male athletes, to body copy predicted on vigorous competition, with the “just do it” tagline as the ultimate signifier of this masculine promise.
Women’s sub-brand, with its female-centric storytelling, was inevitably a source of tension.
Ufit Gym Articles
Ufit Gym R.Moss, 2016
Caitlin Roper, from women’s rights group Collective Shout, agrees that the adverts objectify women.
“Companies like UFit Fitness that sexually objectify women to flog products tend to think they are being subversive, edgy, clever. The opposite is true - it’s sexist, lazy and completely lacking in any creativity or original thought,” she told The Huffington Post UK.
“This kind of advertising is openly hostile to women, likely alienating half of their potential market. How is this good for business? Does this gym have so little to offer prospective clients that it’s best marketing strategy is ‘look, women’s backsides’?”
“encourages male gym-goes to sexually objectify and potentially harass female patrons”.
Women using gyms do so for their own purposes - they do not exist for the enjoyment of men.
UFIT – (L.O’Callaghan, 2016)
UFit Fitness, based in Cardiff, placed the ad on billboards around the city.
The advert featured a woman in a black thong with the caption: “There’s better things to be stuck behind than the car in front.”
The gym obviously felt the advert was tongue in cheek - however those who spotted the billboard around the city did not agree.
Alice Gray, a science blogger, picked up on it first and said it was a prime example of “sexist advertising”.
Others have gone on to follow her example and have tweeted complaints about the gym’s ad.
One said it “encourages men to sexually objectify” women.
Others have said they will be cancelling their membership with UFit Fitness after seeing the billboards.
How is this good for business? Does this gym have so little to offer prospective clients that it’s best marketing strategy is ‘look, women’s backsides’?”
Caitlin also said the campaign image “encourages male gym-goes to sexually objectify female patrons”.
She continued: ““Is this consistent with UFit Fitness’ stance on sexual harassment? Is this kind of behavior tolerated or condoned in the gym? Are female staff members at risk of abusive treatment?
“Women using gyms do so for their own purposes - they do not exist for the enjoyment of men.
“It’s 2016, we shouldn’t have to keep having these same conversations defending women’s humanity.”
Express.co.uk have reached out to UFit Fitness for comment.
MIRROR- T.Deacon, 2016
Around 22,000 runners would have passed the advert as they made their way around the 13.1-mile course.
A record amount of people registered to take part in Wales’ biggest mass participation event, putting it third behind the London Marathon and the Great North Run in terms of national popularity.
One of the managers at UFit Fitness said: "It wasn't our intention to offend people and it wasn't at all done in a sexist or derogatory manner."
A billboard displayed during a city centre marathon has been branded a disgrace, for showing an only-partly covered woman's bottom.
The UFit Fitness advert features the words: "There's better things to be stuck behind than the car in front"
Suzanne Hoare tweeted: "I thought ufit_fitness was a cool gym, but this ad is a disgrace.
"Would love to know what EscapologistFi thinks"
Fit Got Real
FIT GOT REAL
The large-scale survey of more than 185,000 people also identified that women in lower paid jobs are almost twice as likely to be inactive compared to women in senior and managerial roles (33.5 per cent compared to 17.7 per cent).
Research from the heath body shows that a mix of practical and emotional pressures, such as lack of time, fear of judgement and lack of confidence, prevent many women from being as active as they would like.
The insights also highlight that many of these pressures come from the way marketing, the media and TV often, portray exercise as being for women who have the money to afford gym memberships, expensive sports clothes or plenty of free time.
Overall, girls receive less encouragement from family members and teachers to be physically active and participate in sports. As a result, girls ages 8 to 12 are 19 percent less active than boys, according to a 2016 study.
Researchers also found that girls take almost 2,000 fewer steps a day on average than their male counterparts, and this disparity does have health consequences.
The study showed that girls have 18 percent lower cardio-respiratory fitness, 44 percent lower eye-hand coordination, a 9 percent lower perceived aptitude in physical activity, and 5 percent more body fat
This Girl Can Research
THIS GIRL CAN:
Simone Fullager,2015
American philosopher Iris Marion Young said, “throwing like a girl” is a common insult that excludes women from feeling strong, capable and respected.
Yes, there are older women depicted in the video, but how would they feel about being called “girl”? Many women will not engage with the campaign’s key message about valuing active engagement because of this kind of language
The text that goes along with these images is infused with popular post-feminist appeals to individual empowerment – “I jiggle, therefore I am”. This “can-do girl” is happy “sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox” and embracing being “hot and not bothered”. It seems these bodies, jiggly or otherwise, are just another form of objectification in a popular culture already saturated with sexualisedimages.
Research has shown that physical activity in the pursuit of desirability is something women eagerly “work on” under the auspices of the male gaze.
Suggesting women strive to keep up appearances and maintain a feminine image where as if this was an advert targeted at men it wouldn’t focus on sweating etc because it is acceptable and sometimes celebrated when men are sweaty and muddy.
Sport England created This Girl Can in response to the revelation that there are two million fewer women than men aged 14-40 participating in sport and 75% wish they were more active. If that’s the case, why should the campaign engage men if women are the target audience?
(“The Conversation”, 2017)
In the This Girl Can advertisement, simulated hypersexuality is posited as essential to agency and action. This turns a laudably intended campaign of empowerment into one of sexual subjectification and self-surveillance.
So, although we should rejoice at the portrayal of “normal” bodies in this and other campaigns, the same objectification of women is at play. Even when showing women’s bodies in action, rather than focusing on the traits of health, agility and co-ordination, the campaign ad frames the female body as an object.
The exposure of bodies is central to the campaign’s intended message of body confidence and erasing fears of judgement. But, far from what many headlines would have you believe, this campaign is not revolutionary in its construction of women.
Being “confident”, “carefree” and “unconcerned about one’s appearance” are now central aspects of femininity – even as they exist alongside injunctions to meet impossibly high standards of beauty.
So, although we should rejoice at the portrayal of “normal” bodies in this and other campaigns, the same objectification of women is at play. Even when showing women’s bodies in action, rather than focusing on the traits of health, agility and co-ordination, the campaign ad frames the female body as an object.
The focus is on women’s buttocks, faces, hips and chests, the sexualised movements of twerking, “wobbling”, hip shaking and heavy breathing, and taglines such as “Hot, and not bothered” and “Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox”.
Gender Schema
Gender schema theory was formally introduced by Sandra Bem in 1981 as a cognitive theory to explain how individuals become gendered in society, and how sex-linked characteristics are maintained and transmitted to other members of a culture.
By the time children reach the age of four or five, girls and boys have typically come to prefer activities defined by the culture as appropriate for their sex and also to prefer same-sex peers.
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