Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Project: Female Athletes and Equality



  For my project I used Powerpoint, Camtasia and the internet to find things to support my claim, “ teen female athletes are represented as less than male athletes.” In class we learned about the dominant ideology S.C.W.A.A.M.P., we also learned from Douglas about inequality against women which included a quote in my video. In the reading by Douglas, Enlightened Sexism we learned of women being used as sex objects and decorative, which we learned in Tolman and Higgins’ reading, Mastering Your Johnson,“Goffman notes that men in advertisements are more often depicted as performing a function while women are merely decorative (Goffman, 1979, p. 32-35)” (Tolman 105). This is definitely evident in the poster for “The Little Giants” Ice Box, the only girl who plays football in the movie. She is set apart by looking at the camera and her hand is on her long. In the poster for the film “Gracie," Gracie is in the center and has the ball on her hip and is the only girl. In a still I found for “Love and Basketball” it says girls cannot play ball” which reinforces the stereotype that males are not equal to females.
In a site I found it states the stereotypes of women especially on sport media. One quote from the site backs up the ones from Tolman and Douglas,“Televised Sports News: Women Are Humorous Sex Objects in the Stands, but Missing as Athletes” (la84foundation.org). Even televised sports show the inequality of women. It is true I have an older brother and when I walk by I usually only see the male sports segments on the sport channels. Another quote that supports this is “Women’s sports were under reported and under represented in the six weeks of television sports news sampled in the study. Men' s sports received 92% of the air time, women' s sports 5%, and gender neutral topics 3%” (la84foundation.org). I found these quotes at www.la84foundation.org/9arr/ResearchReports/ResearchReport2.htm, under summary of findings by Dr. Margaret Carlisle Duncan, Michael A. Messner, Linda Williams and Kerry Jensen it is an August 1990 article.
In the scenes from “Gracie” and“Little Giants” there is whiteness, maleness and able bodied people, there is also males and priority ownership, because the family own the house, and straightness when she is in the car with the guy. In “Love and Basketball”there is maleness, able bodied people and all the scenes incorporate Americanness because sports are highly valued in America. Property ownership is included. The kids mention Monica, the girl playing basketball moving in next door. All the movies include straightness. I noticed while watching the "Gracie" trailer that the mother says "if you want to limit yourself that's fine, but don't let others do it for you." I do not like that she said its fine as long others do not. She should not have to limit herself at all.
I also found a picture of Tara Dakides which is decorative. It focuses on her. Her snow board is in the back of her. she is used as a sex object. Here is the link along with other female athletes. it is titled" Best Looking Athletes. ahttp://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0611/gallery.prettypeople.women20/content.10.html

sorry my computer was acting funny and i had to fix my video again.

7 comments:

  1. Keisha I really enjoyed your piece and your video. Being a female athlete is difficult and is always measured according to males within the sport. I like how your compare the movie with the pieces. I definitely see the connections you have made.

    Title IX requires that no one be denied federal funding and this includes girls' sports. However, girls' sports are usually the first cuts that are made in school budgets unless they are popular like a volleyball team that makes nationals every year.

    In my opinion, because female bodies aren't viewed as able and athletic, it fuels the stereotypes of female athletes being manly or not good enough. Great piece!

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  2. Keisha!
    Great video! You made it easy to know what your argument was and your examples really helped support it. I enjoyed how you started with Love and Basketball because that is what came to my mind when I saw your topic. Being a female who played sports all my life, and went to a all boys daycare, played on all boys hockey teams I agree the being a female athlete is difficult and you are always measured up to the males. Even in high school basketball I always was told the boy’s games are so much better because they can dunk nobody wants to go to the girls game. I saw many connections you made within your movie, and you compared the pieces well. Also, another example I thought of is how even today you seem mostly NBA on TV rather than WNBA, because of what sells in the media. So the media is playing along with all stereotypes.

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  3. keisha,
    I loved your video. Love and Basketball is my favorite movie. you had me as soon as i saw that.lol. But seriously your argument was great. This is a subject that does not get as much attention as it should. Women athletes do not get the recognition they deserve. They do not get the same media coverage and in professional sports are paid way less than male athletes. This inequality needs to stop. Female athletes are just as good if not better than male athletes. It's time that women are looked at for how well they play the game instead of how good they look playing it.

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  4. I enjoyed your video! I like your argument about girls having to be like boys in order to play with them. This is true with many sports. A girl has to look and act like a tomboy in order to be an athlete. I think its ridiculous, even "girly girls" can play sports. Why can't girls play with boys without having to change themselves? There is maleness represented in the film because girls are viewed as inferior to the boys.

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  5. I really liked the topic you chose. When I was looking through video clips for my project I looked at that first clip from Love & Basketball (one of my favorite movies). I remember when I was younger I was such a tomboy. However, by the time middle school came I grew out of that phase. But I remembered that the boys wouldn't want to date tomboys because they weren't considered "girly" enough for them. I do also think that whenever a girl is in a movie and she is an athlete she is always being helped by a male in some way or another. Great Topic !!!!!

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  6. I agree with everyone else amazing video! It was very clear to see what you were talking about. It really does stink when a boy tells you can't play a certain sport because your a girl. What I enjoy about the media is that they are showing movies as girl being the athlete and playing a "boy" sport. But at the same time the media is showing that you can't be a "girly girl" to be someone who likes sports. You have to be a tom boy.
    All the clips you chose did a great job on getting your message out!

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  7. Your video was really good! I agree with your claim that female athletes are not seen as equal. In the media and in the sports media, women athletes do not get as much attention as the men do. I never really heard about an WNBA team or a girls hockey team or anything. On the other hand, when women do get the attention they're only viewed as decorative and photoed in revealing clothing that has not nothing to do with their sport.

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