The US has a Women's Rugby League, too!!

This is a .gif that I made of the images on the front of the USA Rugby Women's National Team homepage.
The team runs almost exclusively off of donations and team fund raisers (the men's does not).

From their website:

• The road to the World Cup 2010 will take determination, sweat, lots of ice baths, and $850,000 in travel, lodging, meals and other expenses.  
• It’s an uphill and overseas battle. Good thing we have each other to lean on. Including you, too, of course. To help send us off, make a donation.
• In rugby we sprint, we tackle, we maul, we ruck, we kick, we pass, we scrum. We do this in cycles of continuous play lasting from 5-63 seconds of intensity separated by periods of rest lasting 5-30 seconds.
• During an 80 minute match, an international flanker may make 25 tackles, hit 46 rucks, drive 22 scrums, and jump in 24 lineouts.
• The first ever Women’s Rugby World Cup was held in 1991. That year, the USA WNT took its first and only World Cup. Now we WaNT it back.   

UK Women's Sports in a Sorry State

Where are the women in the BBC Sports Personality of the year 2011 shortlist?

"The top 10 contenders for BBC sports personality of the Year are all male. It's hardly surprising, given the sorry state of women's sports coverage in the UK."

In an article written by Jane Martinson for the Guardian, a British news publication, an editorial is made about the lack of presence women have in sports coverage in the United Kingdom. Though, I'm glad this is not an issue occurring in only the United States, it is an equally disappointing discovery to find that women's sports are relegated to side notes in history. 

According to her editorial, women in English sports make up only 5% of sports media coverage. What's worse, is professional sports aside, in England only 1 in 10 girls aged 14 do enough exercise to maintain their health compared to 1 in 5 boys. In the United States it seems that girls are actively taking an interest in exercise and sport, but in the UK it seems the opposite.

Could there be a correlation between women's sport coverage in the media and how interested girls are in playing sports and being active? If we increased the amount of coverage of women's sports and activities, would more girls become engaged in athletics? Its an interesting idea to think about -- maybe when I have kids, instead of taking my daughters to girly movies or tea parties, she'll be going to hockey games and softball games instead.

PS - Did you know England as a professional female Rugby league? RFUW! How awesome is that?!

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes is a book written by Joan Ryan discussing the issues of overconformity within the realms of elite female gymnastics and figure skating. The book, written in 1995, details the rigorous emotional and physical training endured by such young female athletes in order to be the best in the world. Ryan states, "... that the image of these athletes’ beauty, glamour, class and sophistication conceals a troubled reality, with physical problems of eating disorders, weakened bones, stunted growth, debilitating and fatal injuries, psychological issues such as depression and low self-esteem, and life sacrifices of dropping out of school, losing the chance to "be a child", and becoming isolated from their peers and families."

The book description on Amazon.com states, "From starvation diets and debilitating injuries to the brutal tactics of tyrannical gymnastics guru Bela Karolyi, "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes" portrays the horrors endured by girls at the hands of their coaches and sometimes their own families. An acclaimed expose that has already helped reform Olympic sports -- now updated to reflect the latest developments in women's gymnastics and figure skating -- it continues to plead for sanity, safety, and an end to our national obsession: winning at any cost."

“You can talk a kid into being healthy for 

as long as you need her. 

Once the meet is over, you can let her be hurt.”

- Steve Nunno, former coach of 

US Olympic Gold Medalist, Shannon Miller

I think that these sports portray an excellent example of how dangerous overconformity in sports can be. As I am in the middle of reading this book, I can't help but think about whether or not this is an issue that is more prevalent among female athletes or not. I feel that most female athletes probably have accepted the notion that if they want respect and fame for their accomplishments, they have to go above and beyond what it is that male athletes do (in comparison).

This book is excellent so far and I highly encourage anyone interested in sports psychology or just womens athletics in general to read it. The images of these girls participating in such grueling training regimines makes me think that they are working harder, at a younger age, than many famous male athletes do just to get less fame. Is the cost worth it? Their health? Their future? 

What do you think?

Ryan, J. (2000). Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. Chicago: Grand Central Publishing.

Sex or Sports?

Last week the instructor of the class this blog is for gave us two articles to read based on gender issues in sports. One of them was a study conducted by two female researchers Jo Ann Buysse and Melissa Embser-Herbert, in 2003 called "Constructions of Gender in Sport".

In brief summary of the article, it explains how colleges (NCAA Division) are marketing their athletes in a way that would maximize "the institution's coverage and support". These marketing strategies included "trying to sel the team as heterosexy and feminine" instead of athletically capable and competitive. According to  Buysse and Embser-Herbert, their findings revealed that "men were ...more likely to be portrayed as true athletes, and makers of femininity had become common in the portrayals of women athletes" saying in the conclusion of their paper that "As long as they ca be seen as "ladies" first, they will not be compromising their femininity, or their heterosexuality by playing sports."

After reading this article I did a little bit of my own research. I opened my browser, directed it to google.com and then typed in 'female athletes'. There were a lot of articles and videos of legitimate examples of what a female athlete is, but as I looked further, advertisements on the sides of the articles began to get sexier and more revealing and my Youtube.com videos began to turn into "Hottest Women in Sports" or "Hot Girls in Sports" such as this video:

Most of the video clips in this video are of photoshoots where the female athletes are NOT in competitive clothing or action, and the videos of the actual sports competitions are of butts, boobs, thighs, and stomachs. It's pretty sad that a pole vaulter's ass gets more video coverage than her clearing the bar.

Finally at the end of the video is a WWE women's Wrestler who is, in fact, not wrestling at all, but giving a lap dance. Excellent role models for young girls.

As a female athlete it is incredibly frustrating how this can continue to be the image of women's sports without there being some kind of uprising. However, it seems that the sexier a female athlete is, the more money she makes. That seems to be the more upsetting issue in all of this.

What do you think? Should women just accept this norm and continue to participate in athletics despite their obvious sexualization and marginalization? Is there anything that can be done to stop this? If there was no sexual link to female athletics, would people still pay attention?

References:  "Constructions of Gender in Sport: An Analysis of Intercollegiate Media Guide Cover Photographs" by Jo Ann Buysse and Melissa Sheridan Embser-Herbert. Published in Gender & Society, Vol. 18 No. 1, February 2004, Pages 66-81

What does a female athlete look like?

I especially love this commercial that was put out earlier this year by Nike because it looks at female athletes in a way that is not typically done so (also, because it includes roller derby). There are women in this video sweating, running, with prostheses, jumping through fire, and even dunking a basketball over a group of men. This video is representing female athletes for what they do, and not what they look like which is a huge gulp of fresh air.

Why is it that female athletes are always pictured with some sexual overtone? Why is it that the only reason we know about Brandi Chastain is because she took her shirt off after scoring the winning goal at the 1999 Women's World Cup? When you think of tennis, do you immediately think of Anna Kournikova? If you do, and you google her, isn't it amazing that there are more photos that show up of her in a bikini (or topless) than there is of her actually playing tennis? In fact, I just googled her and of the first 50 photos that showed up, only two of them of her in competition.

In reality, female athletes don't look like supermodels despite the images we see of them in magazines and online. A great representation of the way true athletes look would be to examine the female athletes who participated in the Reebok 2011 CrossFit Games ! These women are stacked and able to accomplish many physical feats that your typical male athlete couldn't do. They are strong, they are confident, and they aren't an hourglass figure in short skirts.

I think marketing agencies and Sports Illustrated need to re-think what a female athlete looks like and what they are capable of. I vote to see less Kournikova-types, and more like these women .

Sportswoman of the Year

Every year the Women's Sports Foundation conducts a poll of its readers and then the Women's Sports Foundation Awards Committee selects a winner based on votes and essays written by readers. In recent years, athletes like Serena and Venus Williams, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Jenny Thompson, and Michelle Kwan have been honored with this award.

My concern about this is primarily that as I read through the list of past recipients, there were only a few whose names that I recognized. Either this means that I don't pay much attention to women's athletes, or maybe they're just not getting the publicity that they deserve. The awards have been given out since 1993 and of the 18 winners, I could tell you what sport 6 of them played. Less than half. A lot of the more recognizable names that I found were female athletes from the early 90's. Almost none of the most recent winners were names that I had ever heard before with the exception of Annika Sorenstam who was awarded in 2004 and I don't think this is because I don't pay attention, I think its because women don't get the coverage that they used to.

Until this class, I was never made aware of how little coverage women's sports get. I just assumed it was just a little less than half of the coverage. Then I started to look at the Tribune, ESPN, and television stations like NBC, ABC, and Fox and the realization of just how much coverage women's athletes were getting really started to sink in. How do we change this? Is it the networks' fault? Or is it society as a whole who is contributing to the marginalization of women's athletics? Its just something to think about the next time you watch a sporting event that isn't the Olympics.

And by the way, if you're interested to see who wins the Sportsman of the Year award for 2011, Winners will be announced at the Annual Salute to Women in Sports on October 19 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.