Welcome,
I am Junior Rodrigue final year student at Keele university with the mind set to
produce a piece of work that would effect the males gaze on female sport.
Through my time in Keele university I have developed and learned skills, that
can now be put into practice.
Being in my final year at Keele university, I have the opportunities to create a
piece of work as my final year project. I decided to create a sport magazine be-
cause of my passion football and the fact that I find every sport interesting. The
magazine was meant to bring up the differences between gender in sport, I
personality never experiment anything like that but being at keele for four years
I made a lot of friends and some of them are women who are involved in sport.
While doing the researches on female sport, I realised the measure of effort
between male and female to be set on different cultural expectations mostly
dominate by males.
This inspired me to create this magazine and show the success of Keele
sportswomen have achieved throughout the years: this year in particular. The
success of women sports around campus have been unbelievable, this year
they toped it up by dominating varsity 2013.
I hope you will be enjoying this magazine and develop a new mind set on the
topic on the female gaze in sports as this marks my summary after four years
of involvement and being this year vice captain of the men football at Keele
university.
Enjoy,
Junior Rodrigue.
5
When we talk about women and gender differ-
ences in sport, the topic is sometimes described
as a contradiction; in general sport appears to
be is dominated by the male. The main empha-
sis was to elaborate on the question ‘what does
it takes to be a successful in sport’, to under-
stand and be able to answer the question above
we looked at the conventional wisdom definition
of being a successful sport person, the defini-
tion is the very ideal for a man, as it suggested
it that you would need strength, power, aggres-
sion, and confidence. They also appear to sug-
gest that women are the total opposite, they are
describe as inferior weak, incompetent, cooper-
ative, passive, timid and vulnerable. Based on
these descriptions it is clear that men should
have the upper hand over women on all sport
related matters.
Based on how society views gender it is often
the case that when a woman is successful in
sport she is suddenly seen as a challenge to
the gender order created by society and this
can lead to a sense of unwelcomeness in the
world of sport. It looked that the media in sport
do support that ideology so seemed to focus a
lot more around sport that are male oriented
e.g. Sky Sport News by looking at the setting of
the studio and the cast. It’s clearly set to appeal
to a male audience and that can also be ob-
serve through the language used and tone used
during the programme, there is one of the acci-
dent on Skysport news that showed the mind
set and the sexism within the cast and produc-
tion. Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and
Richard Keys were at the centre of a sexism
row, as they were analysing the football game,
they noticed a situation where the female lines-
man Sian Massey didn’t make the correct deci-
sion. Both presenters were thinking that they
were off air and went on and said Comments on
Ms Massey, Mr Keys said: ‘Somebody better
get down there and explain offside to her.’
Mr Gray, a former Scottish international foot-
baller, replied: ‘Can you believe that? A female
linesman. Women don’t know the offside rule.’
Mr Keys replied: ‘Course they don’t. I can guar-
antee you there will be a big one today. Kenny
(Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish) will go
potty. This isn’t the first time, is it? Didn’t we
have one before?’
Later in the exchange, Mr Keys said: ‘The
game’s gone mad. Did you hear charming Kar-
ren Brady this morning complaining about sex-
ism? Do me a favour, love. Those kind of
situation support the suggestion that media is
strongly male oriented .
Regardless of how the media or society ad-
dress gender in sport, according to Arthur et al
it’s impossible to ignore the accomplishment of
women athletes in the last decade for example
the advent of professional women’s basketball;
the proliferation of websites and magazines
dedicated to woman’s sport and fitness; the
stunning victories of American sport women at
the 1994 winter Olympics; the so-called
“Olympics of the women” (the 1996 Atlanta
Summer Games); the growing popularity of
women’s tennis; the emergence of successful
women’s team sports, such as the 1999
women’s world cup soccer championship that
generated unprecedented support. All of these
events seem to suggest that women's sport
now occupies an increasingly significant place
in our cultural world.
The message behind this article is to let the
readers know that women’s participation in
sport has a long history, which shows that
8
women also had success in sport but wentthrough difficulties to be able to achieve thatpresence in sport. A history marked by divisionand discrimination but also one filled with majoraccomplishments by female athletes and impor-tant advances for gender equality and the em-powerment of women and girls. It’s important toacknowledge the difference and the positive im-pact created by feminist movements in term ofthe way woman sport is mediated and treatedaround the world.Here we got a list of incredible athletes who af-
fect sport in a positive way through their suc-cess as female athlete. Achievements are thoseof Helene Madison of the United States ofAmerica, the first woman to swim the 100-yardfreestyle in one minute at the 1932 Olympics;Maria-Teresa de Filippis of Italy, the first womanto compete in a European Grand Prix auto racein 1958; Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco, thefirst woman from an Islamic nation to win anOlympic medal for the 400-metre hurdles at the1984 Olympics; and Tegla Loroupe of Kenya,who in 1994 became the first African woman towin a major marathon.1 Women have taken uptop leadership positions in sport, such as Presi-dents and Secretaries-General of NationalOlympic Committees. More and more womenhave also taken up employment opportunities inall areas of sport, including as coaches, man-agers, officials and sport journalists.These achievements were made in the face ofnumerous barriers based on gender discrimina-tion. As Women were often perceived as beingtoo weak for sport, particularly endurance
sports, such as marathons, weightlifting and cy-
cling, and it was often argued in the past that
sport was harmful to women’s health, particu-
larly their reproductive health. In 1896, Baron
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern
Olympics, stated: “No matter how toughened a
sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut
out to sustain certain shocks.” Such stereotypes
fuelled gender-based discrimination in physical
education and in recreational and competitive
sport, sporting organizations and sport media.
The idea of this article is to elaborate on the
gender differences in sport. Firstly I will show
how sports like football, rugby and basketball
are more interpreted and mediated as a male
sport. This will be broken into different parts: a)
the lack of female presenters in media coverage
of these particular sports b) the hierarchy within
these sports organisations which are mainly
dominate by men and c) the ideology that
women are not physically built for these sports.
The second part of the article will focus on the
way the gender predicament is viewed in single
sports such as swimming and fencing. This part
will also be broken down into sections A) How is
a gender difference less noticeable in a single
sport and that there seems to be a sense of
equality between both genders. B) Finally the
conclusion will look at the similarities and differ-
ences between both points and how sport is de-
veloping by maturing in that specific department
(gender) the article will mention some of the
techniques used to stop the gender inequality in
sport.
9
Association football (also known as soccer, par-
ticularly in North America) is widely known to be
the world's most popular team sport. Football's
global governing body, the Fédération Interna-
tionale de Football Association (FIFA), has 208
national member associations, and produce a
massive tournament, called the World Cup fi-
nals, it is played every four years before a
worldwide television audience. “Giulianotti and
Robertson (2004, 2007, and 2009) have ex-
plored the complex and increasingly significant
interrelationships of globalization and football,
with specific reference to their historical, cul-
tural, economic, political, and social dimen-
sions”.
This article looked at the involvement of boys
and girls in playground football. It is based on
research conducted with 10- to 11-year-old
pupils at two state primary schools in London.
How the children involvements in the play-
ground football shaped and draw on the con-
struction of boys and girls. Many boys who were
heavily involved in football and prove both their
knowledge and interest in sport showed an in-
crease in masculinity. These findings led to the
suggestion that non-footballing boys or girls are
more likely to be deride and exclude. Links be-
tween humility, restraint, niceness and feminin-
ity also had a negative impact on girls’ involve-
ment in the sport. Prohibitions around desire
and determination proved especially damaging
to girls’ attempts at ownership and assertive-
ness within the game. This was compounded by
boys’ co-optation of football as ‘inherently mas-
culine’. Girls’ resistance strategies to male dom-
ination of the football pitch tended to focus on
disruption and rarely resulted in equal participa-
tion. This was due to opposition from powerful
boys as well as entrenched gendered zones of
play that granted boys automatic rights to foot-
ball and girls only marginal tenancy.
Sports have been seen as a highly potent site
for the development of masculine identity and,
as the dominant sport in many countries; it is
football that is especially linked to masculinity,
national and local identities. Base on that idea
that football identity is masculine, the increasing
number of women entering the field of football
have be seen as a direct threat to masculine
identity, which would make football a significant
site of gender conflict.
History of Football, B
Basketball is a team sport; the objective of the
sport is being able to shoot a ball through a
basket horizontally positioned to score points
while following a set of rules which make the
sport more competitive. Usually, two teams of
five players play on a marked rectangular court
with a basket at each width end but could also
be played with fewer players’ in that case only
one size of the court and basket would be use.
Basketball is one of the world's most popular
and widely viewed sports. A regulation basket-
ball hoop consists of a rim 18 inches (46 cm) in
diameter and 10 feet (3.0 m) high mounted to a
backboard. A team can score a field goal by
shooting the ball through the basket during reg-
ular play. There are a set of rules determine
how many point each basket worth, the rule is a
field goal scores is worth two points for the
shooting team and that is determine from
where the player is when making the basket, if
a player is touching or closer to the basket than
its two point. The three-point line also known as
three points would be basket scored by players
from behind the three-point line. The team with
the most points at the end of the game wins, but
additional time (overtime) may be issued when
the game ends with a draw. One of the impor-
tant rule of basketball is how to travel with the
ball. The sport require the player to bounce the
ball to advance on the court while walking or
running (dribbling) or throwing (passing) it to a
team mate. It is a violation to move without drib-
bling the ball known as (travelling), another vio-
lation is to carry it, or to hold the ball with both
hands then resume dribbling known as (double
dribble). Numerous violations are called "fouls."
one of the most common violations and strongly
enforce rule is a disruptive physical contact on
an offensive player known as (a personal foul)
is normally penalised with a free throw which is
usually awarded to an offensive player if he is
fouled while shooting the ball. Through the
games there is a large number of technical fouls
that may also be issued it occur when certain
infractions are made, in most situations it’s for
unsportsmanlike conduct on the part of a player
or coach. A technical foul gives the opposing
team a free throw, and the opposing team also
retains possession of the ball. Basketball has
evolved many commonly used techniques of
shooting, passing, dribbling, and rebounding, as
well as specialised player positions and offen-
sive and defensive structures (player position-
ing) and techniques. Typically, the tallest
members of a team will play "center", "power
forward" or "small forward" positions those are
positions that involved winning the rebound and
blocking, while shorter players or those who
possess the best ball handling skills and speed
play "point guard" or "shooting guard" those
players are more likely to play the attacking po-
sitions. While competitive basketball is carefully
regulated, numerous variations of basketball
have developed for casual play. Competitive
basketball is primarily an indoor sport played on
a carefully marked and maintained basketball
court, but less regulated variations are often
played outdoors in both inner city and remote
areas.
13
asketball and Rugby
In early December 1891, Canadian American
Dr. James Naismith, a physical education pro-
fessor and instructor at the International Young
Men's Christian Association Training
School(YMCA) (today, Springfield College) in
Springfield, Massachusetts, USA), this is how
he came up with the creation of the sport, he
was trying to keep his gym class active on a
rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to
keep his students occupied and at proper levels
of fitness during the long New England winters.
After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or
poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote
the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto
a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track. In contrast
with modern basketball nets, this peach basket
retained its bottom, and balls had to be re-
trieved manually after each "basket" or point
scored; this proved inefficient and slow the
game down, however, he decided to removed
the bottom of the basket which allowed the balls
to go through the basket and speed up the
game instead of having to collect the ball each
time. Basketball was originally played with a
soccer ball.Until the 1950s when Tony Hinkle
decided to search for a ball that would be more
visible, which led to the creation of the orange
ball that is commonly in use. Dribbling was not
part of the original game except for the "bounce
pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the
primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was
eventually introduced but limited by the asym-
metric shape of early balls. Just like the new
ball dribbling only became a major part of the
game around the 1950s, as manufacturing im-
proved the ball shape it led to the improvement
of the sport in general. The changes did stop
there eventually the creation of metal hoops
with backboard came through in the 1906 to re-
place the peach baskets. A further change was
soon made on the basket, so that the ball could
merely pass through. The improvement of tech-
nology also led to change such as whenever a
person got the ball in the basket, his team
would gain a point automatically. The major rule
stayed the same whichever team got the most
points won the game. The baskets were origi-
nally nailed to the mezzanine balcony but the
fact that spectators could interfere with the shot
it led to the creation of the backboard which
provided support for the basket and also made
the sport more competitive as it created another
way of scoring baskets. In early 2006 Nai-
smith's granddaughter discovered his handwrit-
ten diaries, it elaborated on the Naismith’s
worries and was nervous about the new game
he had invented, which introduced rules from a
children's game called "Duck on a Rock", as
many had failed before it. Naismith called the
new game "Basket Ball". The first official bas-
ketball game was played in the YMCA gymna-
sium in Albany, New York on January 20, 1892
with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the
shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m). A lot
changed from that game, present days the court
is double the size and now the game is played
with five players since 1897. National Basket-
ball Association (NBA) is now the biggest bas-
ketball organisation.
14
Rugby union is often referred to as rugby; it is a
full contact team sport which originated in Eng-
land in the early 19th century. One of the two
important rules of rugby is: it is based on run-
ning with the ball in hand which could be kick as
well. It is played with an oval-shaped ball with a
maximum width and length of 30 centimetres
(12 in) and 62 centimetres (24 in) respectively.
It is played on a field up to 100 metres (330 ft)
long and 70 metres (230 ft) wide with H-shaped
goal posts on each goal line. William Webb Ellis
is often the name mentioned with the invention
of running with the ball in hand. In 1823 at
Rugby School when he allegedly caught the ball
while playing football and ran towards the oppo-
sition goal. However, there are not enough evi-
dences for the story which made it doubtful. In
1845, Rugby school pupils wrote the first foot-
ball laws which led to the significant events in
1863 of the early development of rugby which
included the decision of the Blackheath Club's
to come apart from football association and split
between rugby union and rugby league in 1895.
Historically rugby was an amateur sport; but in
1995 the International Rugby Board (IRB) re-
moved restrictions on payments to players, and
allowed the sport to go and open for profes-
sional so that the game could be played at the
highest level for the first time. The IRB has
been the governing body for rugby union since
its formation in 1886. Rugby union become pop-
ular and spread from the Home Nations of
Great Britain and Ireland, and was getting a lot
of attentions from many of the countries associ-
ated with the British Empire. Early exponents of
the sport included Australia, New Zealand and
South Africa. Rugby union became very popular
and was the national sport for the following
countries: Georgia, New Zealand, Samoa,
Tonga and Wales. Rugby union is played in
over 100 countries across six continents and as
of 27 November 2012, the IRB has 100 full
members and 18 associate members. The
Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, takes
place every four years just like football, with the
winner of the tournament receiving the Webb
Ellis Cup. The Six Nations Championship in Eu-
rope and The Rugby Championship in the
Southern Hemisphere (the latter replacing the
Tri Nations) are major international competitions
held annually. Major domestic competitions in-
clude the Top 14 in France, the English Pre-
miership in England, the Currie Cup in South
Africa, and the ITM Cup in New Zealand. Other
transnational competitions include the Pro 12,
involving Irish, Italian, Scottish and Welsh
teams; and the Heineken Cup, involving the top
European teams from their respective domestic
competitions.
Lack of female presenters in sports media has
been showed through media Coverage of
Women’s Sport, a lot have been written (by
feminist linguists in particular) about the ways in
which language shapes our view of the world
(Cameron, 1995; Coates, 2004). Theories of lin-
guistic determinism and relativity (such as the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) discuss the ways in
which we use language as a tool for (re-)con-
structing reality. Spender (1980) is convincing in
her arguments about ways in which language, it
used to reflect and reinforce the males gaze on
society in which we live, and helps maintain the
secondary status of women. This can be see
through their presentation of women’s sport in
the media. The sports media have played an
important role in the male dominance of sport,
by being own and control by males at the top of
the pyramid and those men make sure to en-
force their masculinity throughout the sport
media. Wensing and Bruce in 2003 suggested
that Sport is undoubtedly and overwhelmingly
constructed in the mass media as a male do-
main, ‘with professional male sport represented
at the pinnacle of sporting value and achieve-
ment’ (Wensing and Bruce, 2003). Indeed,
many benefits from the dominant position of
masculinity in social structures are led to de-
velop many difficulties for sportswomen (Con-
nell in 1997 refers to this as ‘patriarchal
dividend’) and this includes sport. The power of
the sports media to shape the public conscious-
ness about gender should not be understated
and taken lightly: sports writers construct a
sense of reality which is culturally encoded and
created a mind set to young people that women
are not suitable for sport.
We need to understand that prejudices can be
reproduced, consciously or sub-consciously,
and Connell suggested that they are usually
based on patriarchal ideologies. Once that ide-
ologies is created we could see the effect on
young people in the way that girls wouldn’t be
interested in sport as now they developed the
ideology that sport is not suitable for woman
and boys will grow up discriminating toward
woman in sport as them too also develop the
ideology that sport is for man. We should all
agree with Blain (2003) who quite rightly attrib-
utes great power to the media, as the media
has that power to create ideologies and also re-
inforce previous ideology and when that power
is in the wrong hand, it could produce so much
injustice and discriminations as we see toward
woman present in sport: this could be see
throughout the amount of coverage male and
female receive. Evidence showed that male get
a lot more coverage than woman would in sport.
we came across to type of coverage that could
be observe to determine if there is a difference
between male and female amount of coverage
there are: the amount of coverage and the na-
ture of the coverage.
i) Amount of Coverage
amount of coverage have been looked on
through a number of detailed analyses of a
quantitative nature studies. Most of them have
been carried out to find out (usually in the US,
which are a leader in this field) the amount of
space dedicated to male and female sportspeo-
ple (Duncan et al., 1994; Eastman and Billings,
1999). As predicted and mentioned above, in
many of those studies the space dedicated to
men’s sports exceeds that devoted to women’s
(e.g. Bishop, 2003; Messner and Duncan,
2003). Those findings have proven that the
sports media has contributed to prolonging in-
equalities between male and female in sports
via its lack of coverage of women: in America
women are excluded almost entirely in some
sports, and at some times of the year.
Sports audiences usually experience sports
through many different mass media. According
to Nathalie Koivula to increase our understand-
ing of sport media on cultural values; and fur-
thermore to elaborate on the current values and
power structures regarding men and women.
Nathalie Koivula went on and quote Mass
media is a powerful factor which influences our
beliefs, attitudes, and values we have of our-
selves and others as well as the world sur-
rounding us” so if it reinforcing the suggestions
that women are not suited for sport through the
mass media power it would eventually influence
16
our belief just like the quote above suggested.
By acknowledging the power of media in any
form it’s clear to understand the problem cause
by the lack of women present in sport media.
The media is creating the ideology that women
are not good at physical contact sport. Due to
the lack of a female option in the sport media
cooperation, especially the portrayal of men and
women with regard to how sport is presented as
a socially constructed reality in the ongoing con-
struction of gender has been discussed in sev-
eral research papers (Cohen, 1993; Duncan &
Brummet, 1987; Kane & Parks, 1992; Klein,
1988; Morgan, 1982; Perloff, Brown, & Cronk,
1986). The majority of this work has not only
shown the dissimilar and unequal ways in which
men and women athletes have been pictured,
but also considered the possible consequences
this may have on (1) social construction gender
and gender difference, (2) the stratification of
society of society by gender, and (3) strength-
ening of the myth of female passivity and frailty.
Another theme involves how the sport and
media interaction presents traditional expecta-
tions of femininity and masculinity, including the
perspective that there exist masculine sports
appropriate only for men ( e.g., football, Rugby
and basketball) and more feminine sports ap-
propriate or exclusive to women (e.g., figure
skating,, gymnastics, synchronized swimming) (
Koivula, 1995; Matteo, 1986).
The lack of female in the sport mass media
could be seen in all the three sport mentioned
above. From the main football organisation
FIFIA which has always been dominated by
men and which is the top of the pyramid in
terms of football sport organisations as they
make all the decisions. This male dominated
managerial structure runs throughout all main
football structures. This is also true about the
way the media report football. It is being medi-
ated by men and this is based on the fact that
the target audience are men, so the sport has
been mediated in a very masculine way and
barely had any female figure associated with
the discipline. E.g., major sport media such as
sky sport with more than four channels all dedi-
cated to sport, mainly football. Sports studios
and match side commentary are all dominated
by men. These are the only women involved in
sky sport news and they are limited to certain
types of commentary Georgie Thompson, Char-
lotte Jackson, Charlie Webster, Kirsty Gal-
lacher, Olivia Godfrey, Millie Clode, Hayley
Mcqueen. “450 news stories broadcast by five
Australian television networks over a period of
one week indicated that men were generally
over-represented as presenters, reporters, and
expert sources. Female reporters predominated
only in low-frequency, lower-ranked subjects.
Although expert sources were mostly male,
male and female reporters did not differ in their
use of male or female sources. Despite in-
creased participation of women in journalism,
findings indicate a lasting association of men
with higher status stories, source authority,
sport, and hard news” (David J. Cann & Philip
B. Mohr 2001). The number of men involved in
sky sport news and commentary is more than
double that of female it is created and under-
stood as a male base discipline. This also influ-
ences the way the media will focus more on
men’s football and show less interest in
women's football, the lack of a female presen-
ters within the media organisation restricts the
media and it is unable stretch and explore
women's football, which has been growing very
fast in the past years. We will also find the
same set up for rugby; Rugby is more aggres-
sive and masculine than any of the other sports
mentioned above. This creates an even greater
challenge for women in the media in that they
are rarely involved in the commentary; those
women who are involved do the updates. This
could be seen to reinforce the ideology of gen-
der and gender difference created by the mass
media and how it has influenced the audience
to believe perceptions’ of what women should
be involved in terms of sports. People therefore
associate certain sport with different genders,
those that are masculine and appropriate or ex-
clusive to men (e.g., football, Rugby and bas-
ketball) and more feminine sports appropriate or
exclusive to women (e.g., figure skating, gym-
17
nastics, synchronized swimming).
When it comes to basketball, the discipline has-
n’t really left America and is not as popular
around the world. It is a worldwide sport but
strongly based in America. Basketball would
have the same set up as the two mentioned
above it is a male based sport and would have
men at the top of the pyramid dictating the rule
and make the decisions, however, basketball
contrasts with the idea of gender difference be-
cause of the growth of women's basketball e.g.
female college basketball teams created an
equality and acceptance of women being in-
volved and playing the sport. Basketball is chal-
lenging the dominant ideology and stereotypes
that are found in football and Rugby namely that
you have to be a man to participate in the sport
and that can mean playing, watching or com-
mentary.
18
Research on this topic focus on the processes
and dynamics that structure gender in organisa-
tions. More specifically, the purpose of under-
standing and explain how organisational elites
(males) work to recreate themselves in order to
retain their power on sport media, and how
women collude in this process this structure
could be seen through all the team sports men-
tioned above especially in football and Rugby
regardless of the level it is played at even within
amateur sport the structure is still male domi-
nated with a lack of female presenters and their
opinions. The Study below showed that there is
a difference in gender roles and mind sets
within sports organisations. “The empirical data
which was drawn from in-depth interviews with
over 70 women and men who hold professional
and key volunteer positions in one of five Cana-
dian national sport organisations. The specific
focus was, however, a critical assessment of
the plausible explanations for these observa-
tions. They drew upon the theoretical and em-
pirical literature in four areas: voluntary
participation and associations, organizational
culture, critical organization theory, and most
important, feminist perspectives on organization
theory. They study was conducted to attempt to
explain the relations between women and
men in a specific organizational context and
how these relations can be changed so as to
bring about a more equitable gender balance”.
(M. Ann Hall, Dallas Cullen & Trevor
Slack1989).
“The ideology that women are not physically
builds for the sports. Sport has been viewed for
a long time, within feminist and sociological
studies, as a sexist and patriarchal institution. In
the broader context, as equal opportunities for
men and women have become a legal require-
ment in Europe, and the gender gap narrows, it
has been argued that sport remains one of the
last bastions of masculinity” (Cohen, 1993;
Duke and Crolley, 1996; Messner and Sabo,
1990). Through this understanding and the in-
terventions of feminists’ point of view on the hi-
erarchy of media sport, we can now see the
changes and appreciation of female contribu-
tions in sport. However Llopis noticed that in
Spain, sport has been recognised as a domain
in which masculine identities are still created
and reproduced. Sport still seen as that mascu-
line force but the more female involvement the
less masculine it’s becoming and eventually
would reach that balance where regardless the
location sport would just be and see as a male
dominated field. Messner (1988) described the
female athlete as being ‘a contested ideological
terrain’ and organized sport as being ‘a funda-
mental arena of ideological contest in items of
power relations between men and women’.
Similarly, Brookes (2002: 123) argued convinc-
ingly that, ‘Sport plays a key role in legitimizing
particular ideologies around masculinity and
femininity that support the domination of men
over women’.
These theories above were also supported by
Whannel (2002) throughout his analysis of the
portrayal of sport and masculinity in the media.
He suggested that Sports feminists also agree
with us and claim that women are seen as a de-
viation from male. They suggest that sport
media patriarchal ideology and reinforces tradi-
tional gender roles and stereotypical images of
femininity in term of male should be stronger
and more build than females, so when it comes
to physical discipline sports men would be bet-
ter at it than woman (Creedon, 1994). This
study provides an important contribution to our
understanding of the construction of gender
identities and the implications of sport media on
creating gender differences.
Now we can all see that There is clearly in-
equalities between males and females in terms
of participation in sport at all levels, however
women have made a lot of progress to be
where they are as they have to deal with a lot of
20
The Hierarchy W
barriers to now emerge in the world of sport. the
first things we could class as a difficulties are
the first early Olympics which were ran and con-
trolled by males sector organisation such as
politic and sport organisation, didn’t have any
sportswomen presence or allowed to partici-
pated in the Olympic but now participation of
women in the Olympics gradually increased es-
pecially during the 20th century. Hargreaves in
1994 suggested before the 20th century,
women never represented more than 10 per-
cent of the total number of athletes (Harg-
reaves, 1994). The change which allowed
sportswomen to participated at the Olympic ac-
tually happen during The 1996 Atlanta Games
which are regarded as an important step to-
wards equality between male/female athletes.
But event during that Olympic, women only still
represented 35 percent of competitors, and par-
ticipated in just 35 percent of all events. How-
ever the number of women participants started
to increase that’s why the Atlanta Games is
known as the first step toward gender inequality
in sport. In Sydney 2000, there were 6582 male
athletes and 4069 females (that is, some 38.2
percent female) in 25 sports and 132 events.
Furthermore Women participated in 44 percent
of the total number of events and for the first
time were including in mixed events. This was
also the first time women competed in the same
number of team sports as men. The progress
continued as in Athens 2004, women finally
competed in all sports with the exception of
baseball (softball for women) and boxing. This
led to the increase of the percentage of women
participating, for the first time their percentage
was higher than 40 percent (40.6 percent). Of a
total of 10,864 athletes, 4412 were women and
6452 men. “While it is not within the aims of this
article to discuss women’s participation in sport,
it is important to note that equal representation
or coverage of women in the media could only
be expected if the number of male and female
competitors were more or less equally distrib-
uted. What is relevant to our interpretation of
the results is that this is not the case”.( Liz Crol-
ley and Elena Teso 2007). The more women
are allowed to compete and take part in sport it
would be more likely that the amount of cover-
age that they would receive and would also in-
crease and would get a lot more attentions from
sport media and target audiences.
21
Within Sports
Swimming has also been around not necessary
as a sport discipline, however competitive
swimming as we know it today started in Ameri-
can. Swimming as a competitive sport started
around 1800 and mostly consisted of breast-
stroke which is now the main event in the disci-
pline. In 1873, John Arthur Trudgen introduced
the trudgen to Western swimming competitions;
he got the idea from copying the front crawl
style of swimming used by Native Americans
back then. Swimming was one of the first com-
petitive sports; it was also part of the first mod-
ern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. This led
to the creation of the world swimming associa-
tion, Fédération Internationale de
Natation (FINA). Competitive swimming be-
came popular in the nineteenth century. The
goal of competitive swimming is to improve in
term of speed and technique which would im-
prove time(s), or to use those skills and speed
to beat the competitors in any given event. As
every other sport in swimming, an athlete would
have to go through a cycle of training in which
the body get trained and overloaded until the
competition days in which he or she is to com-
pete in.
Fencing is typically divided into three category
type Olympic fencing, Classical fencing and his-
torical fencing. For this article we will only elab-
orate on the sport of fencing (commonly called
Olympic fencing or competitive fencing).
Olympic fencing is divided into three weapons:
foil, sabre and épée. However not to create any
confusion classical fencing do use the same
three weapons, but in classical fencing the ac-
tivity is approaches as a martial art. Competitive
Fencing is one of five sports which have been
featured at every one of the modern Olympic
Games modern fencing originated in the 18th
century in an Italian school of fencing of the
Renaissance, and, under their influence, was
improved by the French school of fencing. In
term of fencing nowadays, these two schools
are the most influential around the world. Tech-
nology improve he discipline, fencing started
using épée in 1936 and replaced the side-
judges with an electrical scoring apparatus, with
a system build up in which can differ between a
point or not, this was achieved through the use
of tone and a red or green light indicating when
a touch landed. The scoring box reduced the
bias in judging, and permitted more accurate
scoring of faster actions, lighter touches.
The gender differences is barely visible when
talking about single sport, during the Olympic
female and male swimmers did receive the
same attention from the media, the only gender
difference that could be observed was the use
of certain words to describe the male athletes
wouldn’t be used to describe the female one
e.g. powerful, barely any female athletes were
describe as powerful. Fencing, swimming and
other single sports didn’t show any inequality
between male and female the media showed in-
terest and the same amount of coverage for
both male and female discipline. There is a con-
trast between the ways the gender predicament
is viewed in single sport compare to team sport.
Based on the studies above it is clear that team
sports show more gender difference through
amount of media coverage than single sports.
24
Gender Predicament in Single Sports
n this magazine we have looked at gender dif-
ference in sport and how the sport media affect
gender inequality. We have noticed that it is
very hard to find gender inequality within single
sport disciplines compare to team sport. The
sport mentioned and observed earlier were
swimming and fencing, these two disciplines
have very mixed genders of participants. Swim-
ming is strongly mediated for both gender fe-
male and male, they seem to receive the same
coverage. E.g. during the Olympics the media
coverage for swimming was not just focussing
on the male discipline like they would for teams
sports such as Rugby. However the sport media
coverage showed a lot more interests to the
male teams sport such as football and didn’t
show the same interests for female teams sport
to some degree.
An example where the sport media treated male
participants differently than female athletes,
they are doing so by focus on one athlete. In
the 2012 Olympics for the swimming discipline,
Michael Phelps from the USA received a lot of
attention from the media due to his incredible
performances and record breaking throughout
the competition. Michael Phelps made his first
Olympic appearances and swimming career at
the age of a 15-year-old in Sydney in 2000, at
that Olympic the youngster finished fifth in the
200m Butterfly. He became a big name in swim-
ming after his historic performance in Beijing
2008 where he obtained eight gold medals. His
Games in London did not start off so well as ex-
pected, all eyes was on him to dominate swim-
ming again however he finish fourth place in the
400m Individual Medley which has been
recorded as his worst result since Sydney.
Michael Phelps was also beat by Chad le Clos
in the 200m Butterfly. However, he picked up
form and won the 100m Butterfly and 200m In-
dividual Medley as well as taking the titles in the
4 x 200m Freestyle and Medley Relay and sil-
ver in the 4 x 100m Freestyle. After such an in-
credible performance he received Texts and
phone calls from the likes of USA president
Barack Obama and he was presented with a
FINA lifetime achievement award by President
Julio Maglione.' Phelps now focuses on his
Swimming foundation. Phelps said after his final
swim: 'It's hard to put into words right now. I did
everything I wanted to and finished my career
how I wanted to. 'I've always said that I don't
care what anybody else says, if I can say that
about my career that's all that matters.'
This seemed to contradict with the suggestion
that there is less sense of gender differences
within swimming as it’s a single sport indeed
Michael Phelps did get acknowledgement by
the media for his successful campaign, however
female athletes who were part of the swimming
discipline in the London Olympic and probably
did as well as Michael Phelps, they didn’t get ig-
nored but they didn’t received similar coverage
and attention when achieving Olympic medals.
When females’ athletes achieved success in
sport, they will not obtain media coverage in the
same way as the male athletes. If the female
football team winning the world championship
would be mediated and showed a lot of inter-
ests but not as big as male football team win-
ning the world championship. There is some of
the females swimmers who got mentioned by
the media e.g. Missy Franklin, 17, won five
medals - four of them gold - while Ryan
Lochte will also took home five, including two ti-
tles. Katie Ledecky made a great start to her
senior career, by winning the 800m Freestyle on
her debut and also finish second fastest swim in
history at the age of just 15. She wasn’t the only
as Fellow 15-year-old Ruta Meilutyte of Lithua-
nia also topped the podium with her shocking
win in 100m Breaststroke.
During the Olympic we saw incredible athletes
in action special from the french who enjoyed
a success campaign in London: Yannick
Agnel anchoring the sprint relay to victory in the
final metres over the USA before taking the
200m Freestyle title. Camille Muffatbecame
only the second Frenchwoman to claim an
Olympic Swimming title when she won the
400m Freestyle, then finishing second over four
lengths.
25
On Sat 9 March 2013 Keele were host to high
flying Abbey Hulton FC.
This was Keele's 4th game in 8 days a tough
ask for any player.
It was clear from the start that AHFC were
aware of Keele's recent successes, as they
started the game with a high attacking tempo.
Keele looked a little in awe of the title chasers,
failing to impress anywhere. AHFC had the ball
in the net on 12 mins only to see the linesmans
flag aloft. On 17 mins AHFC forced a corner on
the right, the resultant corner was fired in chest
high to the near post where it was headed
home from an acute angle by Nathan Chin-
shaw, 0-1.
Keele had the chance of a quick reply when
Junior Rodrigue brushed aside several chal-
lenges to cross into the near post where Dan
Brundrett fired over. A second chance came
Keele's way as Si Agrawal beat his man on the
right cutting inside to beat a second defender,
he was well inside the penalty area but made
no decision to shoot or pass, doing neither to
pass weakly into the keeper, a chance lost.
AHFC showed Keele how to score, the ball was
punted deep into the Keele half where it was
picked up by the dangerous Lee Cropper who
brushed aside several weak challenges to slide
home from close range. 0-2, 29 mins. Keele
were not up to their usual standard, with Mikey
Hewitt finding it hard to find space, and both
Playford and Agrawal both well marshaled. Jun-
ior Rodrigue was having some success as he
frequently outpaced the AHFC back four, sadly
support was not getting to him in time to make
the attacks meaningful. HT..0-2
Keele had to make an half time as they lost the
services of Si Agrawal with a recurrence of his
ankle strain. Jrn R. moved to the wide berth and
Tom Butterfield came in up front. JR continued
his valiant efforts on the right having several
fine runs to torment his full back. As the 2nd half
settled Keele started to look the stronger team
with Williams starting to support attacks from
his defensive position. One such foray saw him
being smashed to the ground, with hapless ref-
eree not giving the penalty, good linesman work
saved the day and after a short conversation
the penalty was awarded. After his miss last
week Mike Hewitt,he left it to Dan Brundrett to
net sending the keeper the wrong way, 1-2. , 68
mins. This was just what Keele needed, a close
encounter seemed on, sadly the visitors in-
creased their lead within 5 mins, the ball was
delivered high into the Keele box, where Keele
Capt. Challinor got in a headed clearance only
to see it drop to an unmarked AHFC defender
Shaun Rhodes to force home from close range.
1-3, 75 mins. Keele were still in the game and
their recent form has taught the team to play to
the end. A superb move starting in midfield saw
the ball being passed out wide to Jnr R. he
raced forward beat his marker raced to the by-
line and cut the ball back for the onrushing
Mikey Hewitt to tuck the ball home from 6 yds, a
good well worked goal, 2-3, sadly Keele had left
it to late to mount any further meaningful at-
tacks the game finishing 2-3 to AHFC. This
AHFC will not drop many points for the remain-
der of this season, and will I feel press hard for
the eventual champions crown. Their attacking
edge just about made them worthy winners in a
tight game.
This was a valiant effort from a very tired Keele
squad,they have to put this result into some
perspective, last season they would have been
losing this type of game by a significant margin,
and now they are upset as they did not get a re-
sult. Few teams in the league will relish the
prospect of playing this resurgent Keele squad
at the moment. Keep at it train hard , "fight
easy!"
The pressure in this league is relentless as next
week Keele are away to Wolstanton Utd.
Keele MOM Junior Rodrigue.
29
On Wednesday 20th of match Keele were away
at Staffordshire University, a powerful club in
local football circles, who have this season
fallen from grace.
As is usual Keele fielded a varied line up, rotat-
ing the squad, keeping the whole group sharp
and competitive. With 3 squad players missing,
Sophie Edward, Becky Kugulogu and Kat
Smith, the squad remained strong, great credit
to the fringe squad members who keep every-
one on their toes.
For once Keele did not look to be out muscled
as SDFC fielded a young side, Keele quickly
got in to the flow that has seen the register 3
wins and a draw during the month of Feb. This
is the best run in their Premier League history to
date, with one game lost in Feb away to Man-
chester university.
Keele were very determined to win this game,
and showed the greater urgency in the early ex-
changes, neat passing all over the field saw
shot raining in from Sofi Liperis, Alex Bailess
and Lizzie white, few caused the keeper any
problems. Keele pressed forward but the final
pass was always to slow, or misguided. The
breakthrough came in fine style when Hannah
hammered the ball home, left footed to the
keepers left, a great finish. (1-0, 12 mins)
Keeles superior passing skills saw waves of at-
tacks flooding into the staff university half, with
nothing but the 1-0 to show at HT.
Keele used the halftime break to good advan-
tage, to talk through the non scoring issues, no
changes were made.
The HT talk clearly made an impression on
Keele as Alex, playing a great ball in to a
crowded box, the response being a superb 1-2,
and a keeper to beat, which he did in style for
his first 1st Prem Lge goal., (2-0, 47 mins)
On 55 mins a great switch of play saw Sofi
Liperis burning down the left flank, beating three
players to fire home from a narrow angle, a
quality finish for 3-0, on 55 mins.
On the hour Sofi liperis was again terrorizing
the staff university defenders when he was
brought down, Lizzie White, stepped up to slam
home his 17th Prem goal of the season, 4-0, 60
min.
With Keele playing some superb open football,
chances were created at will, Hewitt put the
ever dangerous Sofi Liperis free to cut in side
and fire home a great left footed cross shot, 5-0,
75 mins.
SDFC were now completely overrun and sec-
ond best to a very fit Keele side, a goal mouth
scramble from a corner saw Lizzie White poking
the ball home, for a deserved goal after several
assists, 6-0, 80 mins.
Keele final goal came from a superb passing
movement between most every member of the
team, Hannah Shufflebotham playing the ball
into right back Lucy Knight who made no mis-
take from close range, 7-0, 85 mins.
This score line has a familiar ring t it as in sea-
son 2010/11, Keele beat SDFC 8-1, spooky.
This was a good display by a rampant Keele
team, the score line would have been even
greater but for the poor first half finishing, and a
quality display from the young SDFC keeper.
Keele are no longer easily rolled over, and the
month of Feb has seen Keele creating chances,
as they have done all season, but more impor-
tantly they have scored 19, & 4 against.
Teams are there to beat if you do that with style
that is all that can be asked!
Bring on Kidsgrove Athletic FC!
MOM Lizzie White
31