I'm a major advocate for women in the sports industry. And it's sad that people base their opinions on those who interact unpleasantly within the arena. Women in general are usually looked down upon when compared to men in anything. If a person is a female she’s second guessed, and if she’s also a minority, there’s racial comments. Women are expected to cook, clean, and conduct themselves in a submissive manner. Now women are showing they’re not just gentle beings; they’re rough, tough, and can be just as great as any man. They fight hard to gain what they want and/or deserve.
The Sports Industry is extremely lacking women, but they’re making a rise. In Orlando, women are making up 25% of the sports staff on newspaper and television staffs. The percentage is more than double the national average. It is said that Orlando is representing the diversity of the area. Jemele Hill has only spent 2 years in the “big leagues” and is creating a name for herself. Though she got a lot of backlash from reporting on similarity of Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds doping charges, she’s gotten praise for her summertime series in which she interviews athletes while riding in their car.
What’s even more impressive is after 17 years of its existence, a woman has received the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award. Lesley Visser, known as the first female NFL beat reporter, received that prestigious award in August of 2006. She began her career having to conduct interviews in the parking lot, to now being on the sidelines, where all the action is. Women and men of different nationalities participate and watch sports. Orlando is letting it be known that they see it and they’re doing something to make a change.
Though more young girls are involved in sports, males still make up a majority of sports readers 2-to-1. That looks as if women don’t care, which isn’t true in my opinion. There’s been some improvement with women in the sports world, having had a 50% increase in sports broadcasting in the past 10 years. But they need to keep working hard at it. There’s a large imbalance between the salary, prestige, and acceptance of male to female sportscasters.
Some people think successfulness of the female in sport journalism is on the rise, but others think that it’ll go on a backward slide. Women have to continue to prove that they are equal counterparts in a white male-dominated arena. Which is hard as it is, because they get assigned a lot of fluff pieces. Or they're only commented on their appearance. What about the job they're doing? Does that count for anything?
There were times when women couldn’t touch a field. They could only stay in the house. They couldn’t “play with the big boys”. Now, they’re running all over the fields. They’re managing companies. They are the “big boys”. Women have grown in a field that they were once not allowed. They’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men. We don’t really know what the future may hold. Only time will tell.
1 comment:
I too am a major advocate for women in the sport industry. I congratulate the women who have taken the abuse over the years so to allow women to be successful in sports today. Yet, I must be somewhat of a devil's advocate; while some women have become very successful and have added respectful and intelligent insight to the sport industry. Let's be careful on who we promote in the media to cover particular sports (male or female). Remembering that this is not nor should it ever be a gender issue we must not allow decisions to be made influenced because of gender. When I turn the television on i anticipate hating the announcers, male or female because for the most part there are a vast amount of people in the media that have no idea what there talking about and even if you want to say they know a little, they sure have no idea how to convey it to us the consumer on the other end. Something we could call a tradition going back 50+ years would be described as turning on the t.v. turning down the volume and putting the best radio announcer possible. Now thanks to a select few we have the option of a male or female relaying the sports we love. All I ask is that we ignore the ridiculousness of the gender argument and focus more on the intelligence and knowledge of those who already get to much praise for a job that they barely do better than the average fan!
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