• DOI:10.1353/fro.2005.0020
• Corpus ID: 144866426

Textual Portrayals of Female Athletes: Liberation or Nuanced Forms of Patriarchy?

@article{Carty2005TextualPO,
  title={Textual Portrayals of Female Athletes: Liberation or Nuanced Forms of Patriarchy?},
  author={Victoria Carty},
  journal={Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies},
  year={2005},
  volume={26},
  pages={132 - 172}
}

• Victoria Carty
• Published 23 August 2005
• Education
• Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies

Sport has been an area of society that has traditionally oppressed women by limiting their opportunity to participate. Mariah Nelson aptly reinforces this assertion: “We learned . . . that batting, catching, throwing, and jumping are not neutral, human activities, but somehow more naturally a male domain. Insidiously, our culture’s reverence for men’s professional sports and its silence about women’s athletic accomplishments shaped, defined, and limited how we felt about ourselves as women and men.” 1 Since the implementation of Title IX in 1972, women and girls’ participation has increased dramatically in sports and fitness, accompanied by broadening public support.2 Participation has improved in team and individual sports, many of which had conventionally been limited to males.3 Female athletes have broken out of the stereotypical women-designated sports such as figure skating, gymnastics, and tennis. Girls and women now play football, rugby, ice hockey, and wrestle and box as well. In addition to the material benefits of opportunities and rewards that females gain, equally significant has been the uncovering of the construction of masculinity and the ideology of gender difference.4 At the same time, however, many recent textual portrayals of female athletes have raised interesting questions regarding these gains. For example, television commercials, print ads, and press coverage commonly focus more on the sexual appeal of female athletes and their “feminine” qualities than on their athletic achievements. This research explores certain social changes that have accompanied the increasing popularity of women in sports and some of the ambiguous and contradictory messages in advertisements that these changes have spawned. The ads and much of the media coverage in general reflect a society in flux regarding gender roles and notions of femininity and feminism. For instance, many