Women's Sport. Does it even exist?

[Cismyfatarse1]

Today pushed me over the edge. Every single item in the Scotland Sport section of the Times was about men's sport. Bar one - a puff piece about a trans woman who is doing a sponsored cycle.

I thought we could collect and count how many items in men's / women's sport in newspapers and try to push for change.

I will add the main section below.

Once I have a few days done, I will write to the Times. Perhaps we could have a template letter and write to other publications.

Thoughts?

Times today, separate supplement entitled "The Game". (Or should it be The Men's Game) is 100% about men's football.

In the Sport section there are no articles at all about women's sport.

So 100% male including one trans woman (not even about sport, more about exercise and lifestyle).

Some one mentioned on another thread that surprisingly The Telegraph has a good record on reporting women's sport.

Women's football stopped rather than playing out the season. Not sure about other sports but we know they aren't seen as anywhere near as important.

BBC Sport on the App, has 11 articles, all about men.

It is a very sad indication of just how important media services rate women’s sports. And how it will take even more effort due to Covid to have women’s sports even back up and running again.

I guess the question is, are women’s sports happening right now? You cannot complain about non-reporting if there is no news to report. Before Covid there seemed to be much more women’s sport reported, and I think it’s only fair to make an informed comparison.

I can't speak with great knowledge, as I'm not a big sports watcher, but I have noticed that our local paper does offer a far more balanced approach, covering men's, women's and kids sports pretty equally. Yes, there are usually four pages dedicated just to football, but that covers not just the local first division team, but smaller town teams. The rest of the sports section does give a lot of space to athletics, gymnastics, cycling, cricket, etc, and to both sexes. I'd say they were weighted towards the kids if I'm honest, and that's fine by me. I wonder if local papers are better than national?

I've just looked at the BBC Sports page

There are two stories - right in the 'also read' section at the bottom. Ne is a retrospective on Jessica Ennis Hill, and one is a piece about an up and coming tennis player. Plus one of the four quizzes is a Rio Olympic retrospective including both sexes, and one is about golf courses so does not feature people

This is of 60 articles.

But this is not a representative time to be examining sports coverage. Many events are called off completely, and many sports still paused. I can see why they choose to report on what is actually happening, rather than endless retrospectives or pieces about training and future hopes.

What has pissed me off big time is that the gaps on the telly schedules which were caused by sports cancellations were not filled by interesting mixed programming (yes, repeats - a variety of best bits) but by repeats of football matches. If it had to be sports, it is a great shame that they did not take up the opportunity to showcase other sports (the ones you usuallymfind only on the red button)

To Be honest, what probably upsets me more is that the article on the trans cyclist was totally one sides about the discrimination and barriers to tans women competing in sport as women. I would have liked to see a discussion on some reasons why trans women should not be competing as women (at a time when women's sport is under represented)

I guess the question is, are women’s sports happening right now?

Soccer, cricket and formula 1 racing have resumed. Ditto tennis (but I don't think there are any notable tournaments going on right now).

A number of other sports are due to resume from 1 August onwards.

Other countries have slightly different rules (badminton resumed some time ago in China, for example) but they wouldn't get coverage here.

There might be a ruling soon on athletics, with individual field events, and track races expected to last under 15mins being considered for resumption.

(Which might mean men's 5k resumes, but not women's)

The trans cyclist one was such a puff piece I almost felt they had stuck it in to show "balance". But it was a pretty low blow with no women's sports at all.

Are they telling me the sponsored event discussed has no one else they could have interviewed? Not one female?

I take the point about things not having restarted but it is surely a good time for them to take stock and at least see the lack of balance.

There has been articles in the past detailing how much more investment has been put into getting the male teams playing vs the women’s teams in the same clubs. This is a problem compounded by whether the women’s player has the support to care for family and home school or whether it fell to her depending on family situations.

So yes. It may take much more effort to get women’s sport back to where it was prior to Covid.

The only newspaper I know that makes a determined effort to cover women's sport properly is, ironically, the Telegraph. At the moment (due to the fact that most women's sports haven't restarted) it's right down the bottom of their sports section, and not a lot of stuff to cover, but in more normal times they cover women's football, rugby, cricket, netball, gymnastics...

Screenshot of what today's paper looks like:

But I completely agree, the coverage in most papers and on TV is woefully bad. There were tiny steps in the right direction (the BBC was covering women's football and rugby and giving both a bit of air time, even showing some matches live).

I am worried about the hit women's sport will take post coronavirus (this is touched on in the first of those Telegraph articles, on a private equity firm buying a stake in the FA's women's superleague.)

Well, the screenshot was there when I previewed the post...

And now it's there... Weird.

Again, figure skating does not do trans athletes. Actually, I cannot think of a winter sport that does. It's not even really in debate. Perhaps the cold and hormone therapy don't mix very well. Maybe because they're not really sports you join later in life.