Numerous articles over the past week has commented not only on the skimpiness of beach volleyball bikini bottoms (which, as we discussed today, are the opposite of new, yet remain fascinating to the public for obvious reasons). My favorite is this article, which pokes fun at stock photographers' tendencies to take tons of gratuitous butt shots of female volleyball players by showing other awkward pictures of isolated body parts.
It's not particularly surprising that female Olympians would find themselves sexualized and objectified, because they are taking part in a television spectacle. Other problematic gender portrayals commonly found in the media persist in Olympic coverage as well. This analysis of the 2008 Beijing Olympics reached unsurprising conclusions about the differences in the ways male and female Olympians and commentators were shown on TV. Women won 48% of medals at the Olympics, but received 46.3% of the television coverage, even though the women in diving, beach volleyball, and gymnastics (considered "socially acceptable" for women to play) all received significantly more coverage than their male counterparts. Seventy-five percent of women's coverage was devoted to socially acceptable sports. The study notes that these sports all involve skimpy clothing and no hard contact between players. The study also found that male commentators received significantly more air time than female commentators.
These findings are unsurprising for anyone who knows that numerous television content analyses have found women to be underrepresented, and when they are shown, are depicted to be younger and more sexualized than the men they share the screen with. One could also argue that "non-socially acceptable" sports like fencing and rowing are longer events that are less interesting to watch, and are ignored for the sake of time.
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