A Brief History of Sexism in TV Coverage of the Olympics

[boston bean]

Years of research show that prime-time coverage of the Games gives male athletes more screen time and speaking opportunities—especially in the Winter Olympics.

For some Olympic fans, spotting and calling out sexism in Olympics coverage has become a sport in itself—and the past two weeks of Sochi coverage have certainly kept those vigilant fans busy.

NBC's primetime coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi has drawn criticism for the way commentators and analysts cover female athletes, and plenty of viewers found last night's broadcast of the women's ski halfpipe particularly irksome for the way it repeatedly referred to skiers as "girls" instead of women.

Skiing hasn't been the only event under fire, either. Speed skating, curling, hockey, bobsled, snowboarding—you name it. Last week, in one of the bigger dust-ups, NBC skiing analyst Steve Porino said, in a segment about how extreme the courses are for skiers, that the female athletes do "all of that while in a Lycra suit, maybe a little bit of makeup—now that is grace under pressure." The Washington Post rounded up tweets of upset viewers, who felt the remark paid unnecessary attention to athletes’ appearance, while Josh Levin at Slate wrote that onlookers should be "pretty angry" because "everyone knows there’s a double standard with regard to female athletes and how they’re expected to look pretty while performing amazing athletic feats."

But the double standard Levin mentions isn’t a new phenomenon. For years, academics and scholars have analyzed the way Olympic television coverage treats female athletes, from commentary just like Porino’s remarks, to less obvious metrics like visibility and screen time in certain events. Below are some of the most notable findings from several studies.

2002: "A Large Step Backwards"

The Olympics are too massive of an event to show in their entirety during primetime, which means NBC, as the exclusive U.S. broadcaster, has a lot of choices to make when putting together two weeks of programming. And after paying billions for the rights to air the Olympics—Comcast, NBC's parent company, shelled out $4.38 billion for the rights to all the Games between 2014 and 2020—plenty of dollars are riding on making sure those choices attract the largest audience possible.

More at link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/02/a-brief-history-of-sexism-in-tv-coverage-of-the-olympics/284003/

[KitSileya]

2. You're wrong.

Calling women girls is unacceptable in many parts of Europe. Don't know where you are, but I am in Norway, and I think I can speak for all of Scandinavia.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. So the Bigot Games Anti Gay Editon is sexst? Imagine my surprise.

Imagine how little I care that selfish folks playing and watching Homophobe Follies, folks who can so easily look the other way at violent discrimination, find themselves offended by the Bigot Games. 'we were told it was only the homosexuals that would be treated poorly, we are shocked at the sexism!!!!!'

[KitSileya]

5. Just to clarify,

This isn't acceptable in Northern Europe either. While English isn't the first language in Scandinavia, most Scandinavians speak English. We also have our own words that distinguish between girls and women (jenter/flickor vs kvinner/damer) and calling grown female athletes (or any grown women, for that matter) for girls will be seen as misogynistic.

Now dipsydoodle has indicated that he does not want to continue our discussion, so I won't address his points - other than to point out that if he says Europe but only think that the English-speaking part of Europe is relevant in this discussion, I would remind people that that is a tiny minority consisting of the UK, ireland, and Malta, and not even all the people in those countries have English as their first language. I think the French and the Germans (not to mention the rest of us Europeans) would be mighty offended if we hear those three countries referred to as all of Europe!

[davidn3600]

6. Networks only care about ratings

Therefore I wouldnt expect anything to change.

[polly7]

7. CBC's coverage here has been excellent.

I haven't heard the word girl once and have been very happy with how much importance they've placed on the women's contribution to these Olympics. It was nice to see the post-game men's hockey interview, where Jonathan Toews gave the women's team credit for inspiring them to work harder on offense. So .... it's not been all coverage, some has been very, very good.

[ananda]

8. Taking up space ...

.. that's how any oppressive ism works.