A Vancouver Sun blog (2008) points out an interesting point about the 2010 Olympic programs: in some sports, female athletes are listed as women, in others, as ladies. Koivula (1998) makes mention of the "ladies" vs. "men" dichotomy, but focuses more on the coverage given to men's and women's sports on Swedish television (women's sports receiving less than 10% of the airtime). Women were also more likely to be infantilized (e.g. "young lady"/"girl") vs. men, even controlling for athlete age. The infantilism is also noted by Bernstein and Galily (2008) in their analysis of Israeli sports coverage. Finally, Koivula notes that female athletes were referred to by first names four times as often as male athletes, which she suggests may be a sign of decreased respect in comparison.
The difference in coverage of men's and women's sports always struck me as a difference in sponsorship funding, but the ladies/women issue made me think about it again. I guess I didn't really need more proof of institionalized sexism, but the fact that I keep finding it makes me think about the Discordian Law of Fives: if you look for a connection, you'll find one.
That being said, I still find that ESPN is probably the biggest liberal news source on television. In my experience, ESPN spends more time reporting on women, minorities, glbt issues, and the handicapped than any of "real" news networks, and with more respect.
Off topic, check out Mir Kamin's collection of responses (2008) to the NYT article on the ISDP covered last month (9/9/08).
Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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