Media Coverage and Female Athletes

Female Athlete

Media Coverage and Female Athletes is a documentary from the University of Minnesota Tucker Center and Twin Cities public television. “Forty percent of all athletes are women, but only 4% are represented in the media – and too often how they look is more important than their skills. Explore the issue with scholars, the media, coaches at collegiate, Olympic and professional levels; and female athletes themselves.”

Female Athlete

A systemic problem we have in our culture is that if something isn’t about men, it doesn’t matter. This applies to all aspects of culture, including athletics. This documentary lets you take a look at the problem from another perspective. On this blog, I usually talk about this topic in terms of female roles in films and on television or in terms of women in tech or women gamers. Here is a look at the problem in a way you may not have thought about before.

Female Athlete

Because it deals with women athletes, it addresses many questions of gender portrayals and sexuality in the way women athletes are looked at or objectified in the media. There is a really interesting discussion of the idea that “sex sells.”

Bloggers who write about women’s sports are making an impact. To my blogging friends, I suggest this as an avenue you could consider as a niche.

The documentary runs for just under an hour. Close captions are available.

If you have any sort of playback problems with the video, it is available at video.tpt.org/video/2365132906/. You can also purchase DVDs of the video if you want to use it for a group discussion or teaching tool.

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