Gender Bias in Sports Advertisements
Gender Bias in Sports Advertisements
The history of professional sports in our culture has always shown discrimination toward different groups. Whether that be racism or gender bias/sexism, the male dominated (and white male when it comes to team ownership) arena has been able to maintain stereotypes on why the status quo should remain. We have seen advancements in racial inclusion, paved by athletes like Jackie Robinson and even Michael Jordan, an African American global icon who represented the world’s perception of American culture in the 90’s. When looking at gender bias in sports, the issue of women’s sports being seen as inferior to men’s, therefore falling behind in revenue, spectators, and player salaries, is an ongoing problem. Women are often degraded to sexual icons in sports, instead of athletes. Using theories by Foucault, Bourdieu, and Messner, I will examine how this gender bias is evident in sports advertisements.
Athletes showing off their bodies for sports magazines or online articles has become normalized for men and women. This normalization has enabled series like ESPN’s “Body Issue” where top level athletes are stripped naked and photographed in athletic poses (example above). While the movement behind these magazine articles is to support “body positivity” for athletes and readers to be comfortable in their own skin, it reminds me of Foucault’s idea of human beings becoming subjects. The athletes feel individualized by willingly exposing themselves and being proud of their body, while falling into “totalization” and allowing ESPN to gain massive profits by simply taking pictures of them naked. The power in this situation is held by the photographer and publisher, even though it seems to be empowering athletes.
Now that the sexualization of athletes has been normalized, I want to look at the Women’s Tennis Association’s 2011 marketing campaign “Strong is Beautiful.” The objective of the campaign, like ESPN, is to promote strong-muscled athletic bodies as beautiful. We have seen examples of women being negatively judged for their strong physical build, like Olympic sprinter Caster Semenya who was subject to “sex verification” by the Olympic committee. In the WTA’s attempt to break the stereotype that a women athlete is not attractive, some believe they have reinforced it. William Adams wrote in an article for TIME magazine, “It’s no mystery as to why these campaigns conform to gender norms, showcasing female athletes as feminine and sensual. It’s the same reason that men’s tennis will probably never run a campaign suggesting ‘strong is handsome’ or try to court viewers by showing new world №1 Novak Djokovic with his shirt off.” (2011) Here are some of the images from the campaign:
While I can admit that these professional tennis players look beautiful in this shoot, its not exactly how they look while performing on the court, which is perhaps where the campaign should have focused to really promote its message. Adams also shared this thought, “How you feel about Kim Clijsters doing a split in a frilly orange skirt probably depends on your reaction to a well-oiled Caroline Wozniacki serving a tennis ball into a wind machine.”
Andrew Walker, the chief marketing officer for the WTA said, when releasing the campaign, “The images are very much about power and grit and artistic beauty as opposed to physical beauty. We’re very focused on who our players are: the world’s best female athletes.” In my opinion, that message is not properly displayed in these images. Foucault’s ideas of power imposing its own truths can be connected to Walker’s comments. If men are in charge of a women’s tennis photoshoot and advertisements, their “truths” about what is beautiful in women’s sports may overtake the actual beauty of the game. Whether intentional or not, Walker seems to be imposing what he believes is true. The full video of the “Strong is Beautiful” campaign is very well done and deserves to be shared to promote women’s tennis stars, but not with the message it carries.
Before looking at Bourdieu’s theories of “social capital”, it is important to contrast the WTA’s advertisement with some from the ATP, men’s professional tennis association:
The obvious differences here are how the men are showcased. Global tennis star Roger Federer is not asked to wear an outfit he wouldn’t compete in, and his fellow stars are hardly posing at all. Men’s tennis is at the point of popularity and financial success that images of the players alone can be enough to promote the next big tournament. While women’s tennis is one of the most popular women’s sports, they still must break through barriers to reach the level of the men. The idea of “social capital” would suggest that even if women may prefer to only promote photo’s similar to the men, they do not have the same economic opportunity to do that. This is the same for many other sports, women will have to conform to stereotypes in the short-term to gain popularity and then, hopefully, economic success within their arena.
Messner’s theory of the “center” of sports also connects with this topic. The center of sports is represented by elitism, celebrity, privilege, peer status, and media. Many of those terms can have “male” in front of them and still be true. When looking at media, the attention that men’s sports, especially team sports, receives compared to women’s is a clear indication of gender bias reinforced though a long history. I am not able to say whether or not women’s sports would be larger or more successful than men’s if they are given the same resources, but unfortunately it seems like we will not be able to test that in the near future. The day-to-day social practices of professional sports, and its media coverage, continues to uphold the stereotype that men’s sports should come before women’s in almost all aspects of athletics.
References
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d3/ce/12/d3ce12540b3a6281018e919713540cbf.jpg.
http://www.clivebrunskill.com/images/ad-2015-dec-atp-barclays.jpg.
Adams, W. L. (2011, July 2). Game, Sex and Match: The Perils of Female Sports Advertising. http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2081209,00.html.
ESPN Internet Ventures. See all the photos for Body 2017. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/body/espn-body-issue-2017.
