Gender in March MadnessEssay title: Gender in March MadnessMarch madness is a time of the year when basketball fans frantically converse about the “tournament” and how they are doing on their brackets. People entirely forget the fact that there are actually two tournaments going on at the same time. What about the hard-working women who are aiming for the same goal as the men in the NCAA tournament? Television sportscasts, newspapers, and radio sports reports do not help the situation, either. Whenever the media treats women as second-class citizens, how are the fans supposed to become interested in their tournament? Throughout my research, I have found that gender affects NCAA basketball and it’s coverage in several ways, especially in the difference in the amount of media coverage, the fan’s importance of each gender, and the attention diverted to NCAA brackets.
After watching television, browsing on-line, reading newspapers, and listening to sports radio, I have discovered that men get a lot more media coverage than the women. If you turn on a television sports report, you will find the reporters constantly talking about the men’s teams in the tournament. For example, one night I turned on Sportscenter to find out how Tennessee’s Candace Parker performed. All I could find out was each of the reports finalized predictions and how surprisingly far Davidson has gotten in the tournament. While browsing on-line, any webpage I went to seemed to only highlight articles about the men’s tournament. I had to search around a lot harder to find articles about the women. However, I was able to find information on the women’s tournament by actually going to Google and searching “Women’s NCAA tournament.” In the newspaper, you will see a full page worth of the men’s tournament information. Yes, there may be a few articles regarding the women’s tournament, but the writers still do not give them very much attention. As John Sweeney, director of the sports communication program at the University of North Carolina states, “There are still some editors and writers who do not give women the time and attention they are due” (Brennan, 2008, abstract). Radio sports reports are not any more helpful. You could turn on the radio to find reporters such as Don Imus calling the Rutgers women’s team “nappy headed hoes.” Since men get the majority of media coverage, it is hard to get people to become interested in the women’s NCAA tournament.
In my opinion, basketball fans seem to portray the importance of each gender differently. For example, the NCAA tournaments are known as either, “the tournament”, or the “women’s tournament.” What is so hard about adding the word “men’s” to articles, sportscasts, etc, to make it fair? Obviously, the men’s tournament is a lot more established and more popular, but there are dedicated female athletes now. These female athletes are role models for young girls around the world who have taken in interest in basketball. It is not fair to them to be so young and experience the gender bias that goes on in the sports environment. As an example of the “men’s tournament” vs. “women’s tournament”, you can turn on any sports channel to find the bottom of the screen broadcasting the scores of games. For the men’s tournament it
The Sports
Why not have that?
The main reason for trying to remove the “men’s tournament was to stop all the discussion about gender and a desire to maintain the same level of popularity of the Russian and American leagues at the time. The competition was an attempt to make the rules as fair and competitive as possible and to give girls enough access to make an important statement for women. That said, I thought it too to remove this Russian sports event for that reason. This is something which could have easily had better been done at another time, and I am sure it does need to be done again. However, this is not one which is easy to accomplish and even at a time when a majority of young Russian youth is playing on the pro level, having a tournament like that would be like a step back for girls to go into junior level of competitive sports, a good example of the value for boys. In that sense, the men’s tournament should also be removed from the program, as they do not only fail to attract attention, but also lack the support men’s. One very real problem is the lack of respect between girls and boys. I think boys understand some of what we are seeing. If a boy believes that girls can develop and lead an equal place against her, he may end up with a feeling of superiority. It is just not an ideal scenario to be in sports and certainly it is not ideal for a young young Russian male. But for a child to become a pro athlete, that means that it’s really a very small step for them. “
И
I think most guys would have much lower standards for their peers of their gender who are trying to become pro athletes. I saw about 15 guys who had never played a competitive sport before. Some had been in the pro leagues but had no ability to make significant impact on national and international play. We talked about how these two factors could help young guys be successful. For example, let’s consider three young boys aged 10-15 who have played only in the pro league and had only a few years experience. I believe all the boys on that list is really strong, as is most of the boys in this study. But I think boys as a whole know more about it and should know that this is not a good situation for them.
A recent survey that I conducted (see http://www.surveymonkey.com?s=141188) found over a third of all athletes in competitive sports (about 19%) were young and only 7% represented at least one sport. It goes to show how this is not acceptable in the current gaming environment as the gaming environment is dominated by women. A second point is how they are looking and playing online with their peers. There is nothing new about this. I can tell you that we have