Chelsea Litchfield

Women in the Sports Pages

Despite women participating in a variety of sports at an international level, the Australian sports media is dominated by male commentators, male identified sports, and male athletes. Much of the sports reporting in Australia surround high profile male team sports such as rugby league (NRL), cricket, and Australian Rules football (AFL). Women sports do not generally feature heavily in sports coverage in neither print nor broadcast mediums. However, every four years the Olympic Games change this culture somewhat. Over the period of the Olympic Games, during the lead up to the Games and in the weeks post-Games, women athletes can be found in the sports pages. During this period, Australian women athletes are celebrated and awarded space in newspaper coverage, particularly if their athletic performance brings success to the country. This ongoing longitudinal study documents the prevalence of female sports stories in two state (New South Wales) and one national newspaper in Australia, “The Sydney Morning Herald,” “The Daily Telegraph,” and “The Australian,” between 2008 and 2012. In the broader study, newspapers were analyzed for two weeks prior to the Olympics beginning, during the Olympics, and two weeks after the Olympics were completed. However in the current paper, a small slice of this research between 2008-2012 will be analyzed in relation to gender (male, female, or a combination of male and female athletes), the articles relationship to the Olympic Games, and the general content of sports news articles. The content and language used in the newspaper articles are examined using a critical feminist perspective and such a perspective will investigate the ways that women are often ‘feminized’, ‘gender marked’, ‘infantilized’, and ‘heterosexualized’ in the sports media during both Olympic and non-Olympic years.

Gender and leadership positions in recreational hockey clubs.

While gendered participation in sport is widely researched, less is known about the culture of women in leadership roles at recreational level sporting clubs. Women are not traditionally associated with leadership roles in sport and the culture of sport is often a space where males are in positions of power. This manuscript explores the experiences of women from two mixed-gendered and one female-only recreational level field hockey clubs in Melbourne, Australia, and examines the gendered leadership (specifically male dominance), at these hockey clubs. The principal aim of this study is to examine (using Connells theory of gender relations, which focuses on gender imbalances of power) the differences in the level of involvement of women in leadership roles between mixed-gendered and single-gendered hockey clubs, the culture of patriarchal power at play at all three hockey clubs and how such power affected the opportunities for women in leadership roles.

Twitter, Team GB and the Australian Olympic Team: representations of gender in social media spaces

Abstract Twitter is used by athletes, sporting teams and sports media to provide updates on the results of sporting events as they happen. Unlike traditional forms of sports media, online sports media offers the potential for diverse representations of athletes. The current study examined gender in social media coverage of the 2016 Olympic Games using a third wave feminist lens. The analysis focused on the Twitter pages of ‘Team GB’ and the ‘Australian Olympic team’ and the sports stories and images posted during the Rio Olympic Games. Despite a number of traditional differences in the ways that male and females were represented being present, such as the presence of ‘active’ images of male athletes accompanying sports stories and the presence of infantalization in the language used to represent female performers, this analysis demonstrated significant strides forward in terms of the quantity of coverage received by women in online spaces. It further highlights virtual platforms as dynamic spaces for the representation of women athletes.

The Gay Games, Safe Spaces and the Promotion of Sport for All?

In the early 1980s, the creation of the Gay Games and other sporting events for gay and lesbian identified athletes offered an opportunity for such athletes to participate in sports, supposedly free from sexual discrimination. The Gay Games is based on participatory discourses whereby everyone who enters and is allowed to participate, regardless of age, sexuality, race or sporting ability. Notably, the Gay Games culture is often lauded by participants and this event provides a space for participants to compete and socialise and make new friends with like-minded people. Additionally, the Gay Games provides a ‘safe space’ for participants where they do not have to ‘manage’ their identity as gay or lesbian. This sub-culture is examined in this chapter by providing an analysis of the experiences of Australian lesbian-identified hockey and soccer players and their Gay Games participation. Alongside these women’s experiences, this chapter also provides a critique of the ‘accessibility’ of the Gay Games. This accessibility includes both cultural and financial critiques. The cost of entering events at the Gay Games are high; in fact, all participants must pay both a ‘base rate’ for entry into the Games and a cost per sport in which they participate. On top of this expense, the travel costs to attend the Games are substantial and often require international flights and accommodation. Consequently, a large percentage of participants at the Games are middle-class, middle-age to older athletes. Therefore, while the Games provide an affirming space for a number of gay and lesbian participants, a deeper critique of the Games uncovers that accessibility for all is not necessarily the case. In other words, these events are simultaneously inclusive and exclusive, especially in relation to class, sexuality and discrimination.

The Mid-life ‘Market’ and the Creation of Sporting Sub-cultures

Events dedicated and marketed to Masters/Veteran’s sport ‘consumers’ are gaining popularity across Western countries, with most of the participants aged in their 40s and 50s. This chapter focuses on how the Masters sport movement has evolved into a place where like-minded, middle-class, already- physically active people gather in pursuit of leisure and pleasure. We draw on observational, documentary and interview data collected over a number of studies to highlight the: (1) various subcultures within this movement (e.g., sport party-goers, sport travellers and performance-oriented athletes) and (2) effects of the commercialisation of Masters sport. Our purpose here is to demonstrate that the Masters sport movement has become a place where the market can use the ‘Sport for All’ and ‘Healthy Lifestyles’ dogma to exploit and regulate financially comfortable middle-aged adults who have a desire for sport performance, travel, consumption and socialising. The marketisation of Masters sport raises fundamental questions about risk, equity and access and makes it difficult for researchers, politicians and corporations to claim that increasing adults’ participation in sport is ultimately about making people ‘healthier’.

‘I just hope people can forgive me’: Australian women athletes, apologies and image restoration at the Rio Olympic Games

Abstract Prior to the 2016 Olympic Games, Australia’s Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller predicted that the Australian team could win as many as 16 Olympic gold medals. Australia’s Olympic team won a total of eight gold medals and the sports media reacted by suggesting the team had ‘failed’. At the 2016 Olympic Games, three high-profile Australian female athletes apologised to the Australian public for their performances. This study examines these three interconnecting cases and how such behaviour is linked to research that examines sports media and gender (including female agency), ‘image restoration’ and third-wave feminism. Additionally, this work identifies how the culture of third-wave feminism is conceptually troubled by the notion of the ‘female apologetic’ and calls for a re-examination and modification of such a notion.

Social media and the politics of gender, race and identity: the case of Serena Williams

Abstract This study investigates issues of gender, race and identity, as enacted through social media, focusing on the abuse experienced by tennis player Serena Williams during the 2015 Wimbledon Championships. A netnographic analysis of discriminatory or abusive comments relating to Williams were collected from 24 sites on two social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter. These platforms are popular sites commonly used for fan/athlete interaction. Williams identifies as female and African American, therefore intersectionality is adopted to examine the representation of Williams in social media spaces. Several pertinent themes were uncovered relating to Williams including ‘Gender questioning’, ‘Accusations of performance enhancing drugs use’ and ‘Racism’. Such themes showed a simultaneous overlapping of multiple forms of oppression encountered by Williams, reinforcing the notion of the black female athlete as ‘other’ in virtual spaces. Such oppression is perpetuated by the online environment.