Week #7: Female Sports Journalists

Matt Snider

                The reading this week concerned the presence of females within the journalism industry. The article itself hit on many of the similar subjects that we already had discussed in class. Most notably of these subjects was the discrimination that many female sports writers face in a male dominated industry.

                The discrimination of females in the sports field is something that is on display on a daily basis for anyone that follows sports or watches any sports program on TV. Take Fox Sports’ new flagship show, Fox Sports Live. The show, well anchored by Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole, features a panel of sports “experts” that recap and analyze all the sporting events of the day. Yet, out of the ten or so people that are present the show, only one is female and her role is often nothing more than to moderate the sports debate of the other male stars. It becomes a rarity if she is able to articulate her opinion about a subject using anything more than a quick one-liner because she is simply not given the time to weigh in. A more obvious case can be made for any pre-game show featured on any network.

Yet, what I found so interesting is that upon the results of the survey that was conducted in the article, many females felt as though the harassment they suffered wasn't the reason for not getting involved in an industry. Many women felt that while the objectification and sexism were obviously wrong, the main point for the loss of interest had to choose between the career and their families. As the article points out, many women are not offered management type positions in the sports field. Knowing that fact, women are forced to choose between the  job with obviously demanding hours, limited family life, and little chance for a promotion over a career in a different field. Not only does this field then come with the obvious gender bias, but women will then have to subject themselves to that for many years to come. It makes it seem as though women are allowed to be sports writers, but to do so they have to give up so much more than men do.

All these problems aside, the article brought up the interesting point about there being a lack of mentoring for the female writers due to the lack of females in management positions. This, I feel, is simply an inevitable cycle for steering women away from the industry. Who better to teach someone the ins and outs of the job as well as how to handle things than someone that was in your very same shoes? And as we all know already, there are many more problems and scenarios that rise up when being a woman in the male dominated industry of sports reporting.