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2.2 Sporting women: media representations
In the late 1960s and 1970s, a man-centered media dominated the world. The
media molded myth, idealized women’s bodies, and challenged women’s movements
and feminists; therefore, the media became the major focus of feminist research (Gill,
2007; 倪炎元 Ni Yan-Yuan, 2003). The significance of media representation is that,
like all other media, through selection, composition, and manipulation, it depicts the
order and the ideology of society (Rowe, 2004). Hargreaves (1994) took magazines and
comics as examples, describing how they stood as powerful public symbols to affect
the gender roles of children’s perceptions to construct gender conception. In media texts,
women have been underrepresented in sporting organizations and as skillful athletes
(Hargreaves, 1994). However, nowadays, under the hardship and dedication of feminist
scholars, with more women participating in sports, the role of the media needs to be
reconsidered. Does the media recreate and promote male hegemony over women or
reproduce gender stereotypes? How the media presents gender, and especially women,
is the core question.
Around 2003, most gender and media sports studies fell into the category of
television (Messner et al., 2003; Higgs et al., 2003; Rowe, 2004). Afterwards, more
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accumulated empirical study on sports photography expanded the problem of gender
bias: sportsmen were pictured more than sportswomen, and they were given prevalently
more attention than women athletes (Rowe, 2004). Similar results were found in
Western countries such as the U.S.A. (Lumpkin & Williams, 1991; Duncan et al., 1991;
Kane & Greendorfer, 1994), Britain (Hargreaves, 1994), New Zealand (French, 2013).
Media exposure is one aspect of power in the sports media, and image representation
is another. Previous studies had significant overlap regarding the coverage of
sportswomen’s characteristics in the media.
(1) Sportswomen’s characteristics
Sportswomen have been consistently trivialized and marginalized (Kane &
Greendorfer, 1994). McKay noting that they reacted passively, independently, and
heavily relied on men both emotionally and technically (quoted in Hargreaves, 1994,
p.147). Often, sportswomen’s images are full of sexualized femininity symbols and
feature more domestic contexts (pregnant or with children), depicting a gender role
rather than women’s athleticism (Rowe, 2004). In Theberge’s study, she pointed out
that if any women’s sports was reported in detail, it only happened in the traditionally
considered as showing feminine characteristics sports like gymnastics, swimming.
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Women rarely covered in non-traditional women’s sports like rugby, basketball, soccer
(Theberge, 1991). Overall, women are continually portrayed as weak sex object, no
agency existed, only traditional gender relationships. The represented sportswomen’s
bodies not only solidified imbalanced gender relationships but also symbolized the
importance of the “body”.
The sporting body is the prime appealing instrument of sports, “embodying” wider
social issues and identities, as sports images always involve sexualized, gendered,
racialized roles (Rowe, 2004). Through scientific techniques and technologies, humans
were believed to pursue a “better body,” as it resonated through different societies from
modernity to postmodernity (Eichberg, 1998). Several studies on sportswomen pointed
to the rise of the “fitness concept” and the changing meaning of women’s sportswear.
(2) Fitness and women’s sportswear
Fitness has long been related to militarism, anticommunism, endangered
masculinity, and competitive sports (King, 2003). However, in early 1980s America, a
movement known as “fitness boom,” attracted millions of middle-class men and women
to become followers of a fit body. As individuals were asked to take responsibility for
their bodies, fitness products pervaded the consumer market: TV fitness shows were
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broadcasted into living rooms, and the film industry depicted sexualized women,
promoting a disciplined and slender body (King, 2003). Meanwhile, fitness
publishing’s emphasis on the sexual and physical appearance of sportswomen’s bodies,
drawing complaints from many feminists (Smith, 2002). The body then became “a
status symbol and an emblem of one’s purchasing power, moral worth, and personal
discipline” (King, 2003, p. 309). The appearance of numerous new fitness-related
products on the U.S. market was not the simple reason for the fitness boom. King (2003)
proposed a novel point of view about the rise of fitness, as it was actually the neoliberal
government’s strategy. With more individuals adopting the idea of pursuing a better
self, by encouraging them to go to the gym or consume fitness products, the government
could reduce the health costs and put effort into educating the public to take
self-responsibility for one’s health (Ingham, 1985). Still, more evidence is to prove whether
this was the actual intention of the government. Except fitness, the significance of
women’s sporting bodies also involved the display of women’s sportswear.
Women’s sportswear has changed dynamically since women were allowed to play
sports, and it is laden with diverse social meanings (江欣惇、許光麃Chiang Shin-Dun
& Hsu Kuang-Piao, 2010). “The severe restrictions of stays, corsets and hobble skirts
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were being replaced by looser-fitting and lighter clothing” (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 92).
Sportswear reform entailed greater freedom for women and symbolized their physical
independence, expanding the number of sports items available to them. Simultaneously,
it enabled women to experience the physical joy of movement, as they entered into
more varied spheres of sports (Hargreaves, 1994). 江欣惇、許光麃Chiang Shin-Dun
and Hsu Kuang-Piao(2010) captured the social and cultural connotations of women’s
sportswear development. They argued that women’s sportswear changes represented
the course of women pursing body autonomy, similar to Hargreaves’s (1994) viewpoint.
Different generations have unequivocal standards regarding sportswear; it stands
for contemporary social constraints and aesthetic value judgment, and sportswear is
another means of making women’s image conform to social expectations. In the modern
epoch, women’s sportswear is assumed to play a more significant role in gaining capital
and valuing aesthetics than was previously the case (江欣惇、許光麃Chiang
Shin-Dun & Hsu Kuang-Piao, 2010). The media orients the clothing and athletes’ bodies,
and it focuses on feminine sportswear, personal style, and a curved body shape.
According to the media’s representation, beauty, a feminine temperament, and attire
were the only capital that women have to compete with men’s masculinity (Hargreaves,
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1994). Modern sportswear, moreover, helped women to enhance their feminine, sexy
characteristics, and the curved body shape no longer points to leisurewear or sportswear
but is more practical, functional, and fashionable. In this spirit, sports has become
inseparable from the commercialization of the female body and the commercialization
of sexuality (Hargreaves, 1994).
It was clear that, under the saturation of the public culture industry, girls were
bombarded with idealized images of the female shape that were almost impossible to
ignore and separate from consumer culture (Hargreaves, 1994). Reading and analyzing
media sports texts provided opportunities to reify social ideology and manipulation of
cultural power. So far, the body presentations of sportswomen correspond to the gender
inequity and the dominant heterosexuality in sports (Hargreaves, 1994), which putting
under Taiwan road running texts, demanded further examination of sportswomen’s
characteristics and what kind of the body aesthetic values it praised.