Woman First, Athlete Second

Participation in female athletics has skyrocketed in the past two decades and continues to be on the rise. The passing of Title IX in 1972 required all federally funded programs, including athletics, to provide equal treatment and opportunity for participation for men and women. High schools and public universities subsequently were required to spend equivalent amounts of time and money for male and female athletes (Curtis & Grant, 2001). Because of this law, more women began to participate in athletics. In 1971, only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school athletics, whereas in just 20 years, 1 and 3 girls participated (Women’s Sports Foundation, 1998).

Although female athletic participation increased, the media still objectifies their bodies. The popular magazine, Sports Illustrated, portrays male and female athletes very differently. In 1997, Sports Illustrated started using female athletes in the Swimsuit Edition. This had the potential to show the athleticism of female athletes. Instead, female athletes are posed exactly like fashion models; they show no athleticism in their photos. Similar to models, female athletes are portrayed to showcase their looks rather than their athletic talent.

Psychologists Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts proposed a theory explaining why women are portrayed as sex objects. The objectification theory proposes that women’s bodies are looked at, evaluated, and always potentially objectified. They believe people view women as bodies and evaluate them through a sexual gaze, specifically for their own pleasure. The American culture spotlights women’s bodies and body parts, causing viewers to have an implicit sexual gaze. The pictures in Sports Illustrated, in particular, show how the media targets women’s bodies for sexual objectification significantly more than men’s bodies (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). A previous study compared the female athletes in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition to the models in the same issue within 4 categories: photo location, hand placement, body pose, and facial expression. Researchers found few differences. They also discovered that female models were underrepresented in general coverage and over represented as sexual objects (Kim & Sagas, 2014).

Building upon this study, I looked at seventeen issues of Sports Illustrated, ranging from December 2015 to April 2016. Of these seventeen issues, five had women on the covers. Of these five, three were female athletes and two were models (swimsuit editions). The covers that were female athletes portrayed minimal athletic ability and depicted more femininity. Descriptions of the pictures are as followed:

Help me, Ronda?

The May 2015 issue has UFC fighter, Ronda Rousey, on the cover. Around her says “Worlds Most Dominant Athlete.” She is in fighting attire. However, her blow-dried, long, light brown hair is down and placed perfectly around her face. In the picture, she has on light pink lip-gloss, her cheeks are perfectly blushed, her stomach is showing, and her breasts are visible. On the page of the article, she is dressed in a short, navy blue skirt, a white, laced, see through shirt, and high, strappy, red heels. She has on bright red lipstick, and has her hair down in a more messy fashion. Her hand is on her hip, like a teenage girl often does, her back is arched so her breasts stick out, and she is stepping on strong men who are on the ground. In the corner of the image it says, “Help me, Ronda?”

 

“We got this dance.”

The March 2016 issue has University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball player, Breanna Stewart, on the cover. She wears black eyeliner and mascara. Her long, straightened, reddish-brownish hair is down. Her eyebrows are perfectly arched and photo shopped to complement her face. Her hand is also on her hip, and she is wearing earrings. A basketball sits on her arm. Her blue eyes pop right out of the page and right above her, the words, “we got this dance” are shown. Last time I checked, basketball had nothing to do with a dance.  

 

Tennis in a leotard?

Lastly, in the December 2015 issue, the cover shows “Sportsperson of the year,” Serena Williams. This picture shows no signs of athleticism; rather it shows multiple signs of femininity. Serena is posed to seduce the reader. Her long, black, shiny hair is perfectly curled; she has on dark red lipstick and has pink blushed cheeks. She wears a black, laced, partly see though leotard with black high heels. She sits sideways in the chair; one leg is up over the armrest, and the other is on the floor. Her legs are extremely shiny. Her face is seductive, serious and her cheekbones are very defined. The article is about her tennis ability…yet the picture has nothing to do with tennis.

 

I bring these examples to your attention because on every other magazine cover, there is a picture of a male athlete. These pictures are all action photos of the male playing his sport, showing masculinity, athleticism, and strength. Female athletes, on the other hand, are depicted as weak, feminine, sexy, and having no athletic ability.

 

What is the big deal…?

Depicting female athletes as sex objects reinforces gender stereotypes and stresses femininity rather than athleticism. The media already creates false expectations of female beauty with models. These gendered images and expectations can harm younger girls’ mental and physical health. In a study conducted by Fredrickson and Harrison (2003), sport magazine reading led to increased body shame and disordered eating for adolescent girls. Adolescent boys have plenty of athletic male role models to look up to, due to how they are portrayed by the media. Female adolescents, however, see the skinny, perfect looking models all over the media and think that is who they should look up to. How about we start providing real role models for young girls to idolize.

Conversations about Race at Columbia University

It’s no secret that feelings of oppression and exclusion on the basis of race have been manifesting themselves in unprecedented ways across the country. The other day I came across a post in the Columbia University Class of 2018 Facebook group that did not receive national attention, but perhaps warranted the attention because the way in which it represented conversations about racial relations within the US. The issue began when a student of color asked her class’s Facebook group if anyone knew of any Contemporary Civilization sections that were taught by a professor of color. After receiving no help, the student specifically asked if any white students wanted to give up their seat in a section taught by professor of color:

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The post sparked a heated discussion about the student of color’s right to be taught by professor of color and the role white students should play in responding to requests like this.

In the book Doing Race by Hazel Markus and Paula Moya, the two authors assert that conversations like these about race and ethnicity can be divided into eight themes:

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Among the eight different way of talking about race, there are two racial schemas that are particularly prominent in this Facebook post and the subsequent discussion. The first of the two viewpoints, “that’s just identity politics,” is predicated on the idea that race and ethnicity are “irrelevant to, or a distraction from” more important universal concerns. Those who share this opinion often express frustration that those who “have” race or ethnicity receive special privileges that are unfairly denied to those who do not.

The first student to respond to the post expressed these sentiments when he argued that such a request was symptomatic of a sense of entitlement and added that it was an “unnecessary step to specifically call on white people.” Other students questioned the importance of sharing an identity with one’s professor: “Could someone please explain to me why it’s acceptable to refuse to be taught by a highly educated, highly trained professor because they’re white?” Yet another student expanded upon this argument by asserting that a professor’s pigment does not define their teaching methods, subjects of interest, or their beliefs. Therefore these students suggested that grouping professors of color into one category seems racist. This student was essentially making a cry of “reverse racism.” Doing so disregards the systems of racial disadvantages that permeate higher education and therefore such a request is inherently not racist. Instead, what the student of color was seeking was a professor likely to be more sensitive to how white scholars’ perspectives shape interpretations of Classic Civilizations.

A student responding to these two comments vehemently disagreed with assertion that being able to identify with a professor does little or next to nothing for a student. She asserted, “this is easy for you to say when America looks at you, affirms your humanity, and teaches you your experiences are normative, while those of others are deviant from it and their own faults.” She then added that many of the texts in the class inspired the racism that her and other students of color were forced to deal with daily. Therefore, having a professor with a deeper and more personal understanding of what these documents mean for people of color can be an invaluable experience for students of color.

This school of thought falls under the category of “It’s a black thing – you wouldn’t understand” in Doing Race. The main idea behind this viewpoint is that, as a result of one’s racial identity, one’s life is so different that it cannot be completely understood by others who do not have such identity-related experiences.

Although it is not fair to expect minority students to explain their points of view to white students whose experiences are better integrated into the educational institutions they are a part of, it is important to analyze and unpack dialogues like this. In the conclusion of their essay on “Doing Race,” authors Paula Moya and Hazel Rose Markus assert that though “it may not be easy, and it may not be total, humans are able to communicate across [their] differences.” Though often times, ignorance and a lack of desire to find a middle ground precludes this possibility, this assertion certainly can be true. As a white male, I cannot reasonably say that my review of this incident has made it entirely clear to me what this student of color is going through. However, I can say reading the conversation and thinking about all the systems of power that underlie it, shed a great deal of light on the issues for me. I am now more understanding of the request and more sympathetic towards students who are forced to learn about sensitive historical topics from someone whose own struggles are quite different from their own.

Humanizing the American Poor: A Review of the Documentary Rich Hill

“We’re not trash. We’re good people.”

Early on in Andrew Palmero’s and Tracy Tragos’s documentary Rich Hill, Andrew, age 13, delivers this message. Andrew is an adolescent boy subject to a seemingly endless cycle of broken homes and extreme poverty. In documenting the life of Andrew, the directors opt to forgo narration, choosing instead to document his life as it happens. Though the film is void of an explicit narrative, it sheds light on the problems plaguing impoverished families. It provides the viewer with strong ethnographical evidence that supports sociological and economic evidence of the limited upward economic mobility in America as well as the cyclical nature of poverty.

Throughout the film, the directors juxtapose extremely patriotic shots of the town’s Fourth of July celebrations with shots of Andrew struggling to achieve a normal life. At first, I thought these shots served only to make the film more aesthetically pleasing. But as the film progressed, it was clear that they served to demonstrate that, despite what we may think, the American Dream is not always within reach for the extremely poor. For a kid like Andrew, who is forced to bathe in water heated by irons and coffeepots, the day-to-day battle to survive poverty makes long-term planning all but impossible. Furthermore, given his parents’ lack of education and his inconsistent attendance at school, it is very clear that he lacks the cultural capital necessary to understand how one can attain a higher education and a successful career, much less actually achieve these things.

In a similar manner, Palmero and Tragos also include shots of a Ferris wheel at the local carnival in order to represent the cyclical nature of poverty. The academic world has long understood that poverty has a propensity to be passed along from generation to generation. Economic data tells us that the offspring of families in lowest income quintile have the smallest probability of ending up in the highest income quintile (Norton et. al. 2011).

Similarly, sociological literature tells us that parenting styles perpetuate income levels across generations. In her book Unequal Childhoods, Annette Lareau (2003) draws distinctions between the way in which lower and upper classes approach parenting as well as the consequences of the different approaches. She explains that wealthier parents use a child-rearing approach called “concerted cultivation” that is characterized by very active and guided parenting in order to foster the growth of their child’s talents, opinions, and goals. This approach is adopted to prepare children for future academic and occupational endeavors. On the other hand, lower class parents tend to let their children grow and mature more on their own, through a “natural growth” parenting style. As a result, these children are dependent on the institutions they are a part of. They are less likely to seek out alternative guidance or directly question authority. Furthermore, lower class kids are far more likely to spend their time “hanging out” instead of participating in organized extracurricular activities that ultimately are rewarding in the long run (Lareau 2003).

Throughout the film it is apparent that Andrew’s parents’ do not use the concerted cultivation approach. Andrew spends the majority of his afternoons aimlessly playing. The fact that Andrews’ parents frequently move houses in the pursuit of new jobs further eliminates any sense of institutional consistency that would have otherwise existed in Andrew’s life. One cannot help but worry that Andrew will be subject to the same cycle of poverty that his parents experienced as a result of his upbringing. At the conclusion of the film, it is clear that the use of a Ferris wheel could not be a more apt metaphor for Andrew’s family’s life as well as the rural poor as a whole.

Unfortunately Andrew’s experiences are far from unique and are characteristic of the struggles that most young, poor Americans face. It is not clear by the end of the film what could or should be done in order to reverse these troubling trends. While the film fails in this regard, it does deserve considerable praise for its ability to humanize the American poor and strike down stereotypes of a lazy lower class unwilling to work their way out of poverty. It is abundantly clear at the end of the film that Andrew and his family are indeed good people. They are just facing numerous, overwhelming challenges that make it nearly impossible for them to break out of poverty.

 

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