STRONG WOMEN IN THE MEDIA—NOT IN THE MEDIA

It was the big play off basketball game against my High School’s rival: The Bartlett Hawks. The players warmed up, doing several drills and stretches led by the coach of the team. All of the players developed an adrenaline rush that could not be soothed by anything except for the whistle that started the game. For such an important game, the stadium was less than half full to capacity. Parents of the players filled the stands, and spoke to each other about the Booster club, or when their next game night would be. As some may have guessed, this important basketball game going on in front of the few fans in attendance was a female team.

            The boys’ basketball team at my High School got attention that was similar to the devotion the fans of the Permian Panthers gave to their players in Friday Night Lights. Every Friday, the bleachers would flood with students, faculty and parents who would come in body paint posters attached to their hands. The crowd went wild, and cheered for every foul, travel and point that our team had committed. Though I never realized how much more attention the boy’s team got than the girls, looking back, it is quite astonishing to analyze the differences in experiences that males and females have in the realms of sports.

            I will often have conversations with some of my male friends, who will make comments and jokes like, “want to hear a joke? Women’s sports.” Female athletes get much less media coverage, as well as respect than men’s sports do. To top that off, male athletes can earn up to 20 times more money than female athletes. Seeing that female athletes put in the same amount of work as male athletes, this media coverage and pay gap should be eliminated.

            Many female athletes are addressed in the media, but most of them are given the attention and publicity due to their sex appeal, when many people strongly believe that female athletes can be thought of as fantastic role models for young girls. We see several female celebrities in the media that young girls look up to, like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, who show our future generations of women that being dainty, sexy and wild is something that will get you attention. If we change the way media represents women, and start to give female figures, like Mia Hamm and Lindsey Vonn more attention in the media, it is possible that young girls will start to see that strong women with passions and goals are what they should be looking up to.

            Gymnastics is a popularly female focused sport, which most of us can acknowledge if we tune into the Olympics. Gymnastics has never been looked at to be an overworking sport, but as our class has read in the book “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes,” gymnastics is one of the most dangerous, life consuming sports out there. Personally, I find that I am rarely exposed to hearing about gymnasts, or women as a whole for that matter, who become injured. The media, as well as society have focused their attention on male sports, and have given women the impression that they will never be good enough in the world of sports. If my Female High School Basketball team would have gotten the same respect as the Male Basketball team, then it is hard to imagine how much more we could have excelled.

Bissinger, H.G. Friday Night Lights. United States of America: H.G. Bissinger, 1990. Print.