Sexualisation of Sports Venus Williams may not have won the 2010 French Open but she grabbed
enough eyeballs with her highly sexualised and highly inappropriate lacy corset-like dress with nude unmentionables. It was hardly a practical choice of clothing for a long, tough day on the court and that was evinced by the number of times her wardrobe malfunctioned. Venus Williams, however, was unfazed by the entire situation. Sister Serena Williams expressed the situation succinctly: Sex sells.i As unseemly as that might sound, its true. Tennis is the only sport where the womens games hold up in comparison to the mens. Tennis is also one of the most sexualised sports. Tennis, today, is as much about the game play as it is about the fashion statement the players make on the field. While some female sports players voluntarily embrace their sexuality on the field, some have sexuality inappropriately imposed on them. Coaches school their female players in the art not only of playing the sport but also of applying make-up and wearing dresses of the right (read short) length. Take a look at beach volleyball. Women typically play in bikinis while men play in knee-length shorts and tank tops. The clothing is far from a personal choice. The Fdration Internationale de Volleyball, in its standardization of beach volleyball uniforms, made the swimsuit the required uniform for womenii. The womens minimal clothing scarcely boosts their performance on the beach, just the TV ratings. Its not just beach volleyball. Womens track costumes have gone from being shorts and a full-length top in the 1984 Olympics to briefs and midriff-bearing shirts in the 2000 games. Perhaps all the naysayers of global warming should take women athletes shrinking uniforms as conclusive evidence of rising temperatures. Female players are pressurized to look pretty so that they may catch the eye of potential sponsors. Fair & Lovely, the pioneer in creating original skin-lightening product ads, recently aired another one of its masterpieces. A professional cyclist is told by her ever-so-helpful younger brother that the money is in tennis and not cycling. The girl buys a tube of Fair & Lovely, and poof, her complexion turns milky white. Subsequently, she wins a cycling race and a modelling contract. The ad was just as abrupt as it sounds. The underlying message of the ad is clear: being a professional sports player and a female is a double whammy; to make up for it the player must at least be pleasant to look at or kiss her chances of getting a decent sponsorship goodbye. With the sexualisation of sports, one would at least expect the female sports players to benefit. But no such luck there. A study by Michael Messener on gender in televised sportsiii between 1989 and 2009 in USA threw up some unpleasant statistics. Coverage of women on evening news shows dipped from 5% in 1989 to a mere 1.6% in 2009. This sharp decline came about even as the number of women leagues increased and play became more prevalent. Mens sports continue to receive the lions share of the media coverage. When womens games are being given any coverage at all, they are of a poor quality. A study by the Amateur Athletic Foundation found that the quality of camera work, sound, and editing in womens games was of an inferior quality than the mens. The commentators bias was another thing that showed through commentators used descriptors suggesting strength more often with men than they did with women; more adjectives suggesting weakness were used in womens games. The discrepancy extends to print media as well. Sports magazines scarcely feature a female sports player
on their cover, and when they do, they show the player posing in a highly sexualised manner. A case in point would be that of Sports Illustratediv which, among other things, enjoys shooting female athletes in bikinisv. Such representation of female athletes in the print media has done irreparable damage to their image. Researchers Knight and Giulianos studyvi on college students attitudes towards the sexualisation of professional athletes revealed that news articles which focused on the femininity and sexuality of female athletes lead students to have a decreased liking and respect for women athletes. These athletes were perceived as less talented and less aggressive than their counterparts who werent described in terms of their physical attractiveness. Any discussion on the sexualisation of sports would be incomplete without a brief mention of the scantily-clad cheerleaders. When the sports players arent sexualising the game (as is the case with some mens sports), one can count on the cheerleaders to do the job for them. These cheerleaders who mainly gyrate, and on the rare occasion cheer, take the focus away from the game being played. One must give credit where it is due: they succeeded in sexing-up cricket, one of the few sports which lacked any overtly sexual element. Sexualisation is hurting the sport. Earlier, beauty competitions had the dubious honour of being labelled a cattle market something which men watch for the sole purpose of sexual excitement. Now, sports share the label. Paradoxically, even then there arent enough people watching it.
i
http://www.tennis-x.com/story/2009-06-20/j.php Clause 5.1.1: http://www.fivb.ch/EN/BeachVolleyball/Rules/bvrb0912_forweb_EN.pdf
ii
iii
Messner, M. & Cooky, C. (2010). Gender in Televised Sports. http://www.usc.edu/dept/cfr/html/documents/tvsports.pdf
iv
Martin, R. (2010). Does Sports Illustrated Sexualize Female Athletes. http://www.care2.com/causes/womensrights/blog/does-sports-illustrated-sexualize-female-athletes/#
v
Walsh, Paul. (2010) Lindsey Vonn Barely Keeps it on for SI Swimsuit Issue. http://www.startribune.com/sports/olympics/83883412.html
vi
Knight, J. L., & Giuliano, T. A. (2002). He's a Laker; She's a "Looker": The consequences of gender-stereotypical portrayals of male and women athletes by the print media. Sex Roles, 45, 217-229.
