and ain't i a woman?: Women winning due recognition
It's the olympics and we're seeing pictures unfamiliar to Australian television and newspapers. In the rush of nationalist blood to the Australian media's collective head, champion Australian sportswomen who rarely receive their due recognition — runners Cathy Freeman and Margaret Crowley, and the women's hockey and basketball teams to mention a few — have received serious attention from the media.
Of course, the pre-olympic status quo in which media coverage of women's sport is practically nil, especially in Australia's commercial media, will probably return after the olympic juggernaut goes back into hibernation.
Figures from 1990 indicate that only 2.5% of sports reporting in newspapers focuses on women's sport, and the six television channels surveyed gave women's sport 1.3% of total sport time. Libby Darlinson, president of Women's Sport Australia, says that media treatment of women's sport has improved quite a bit, but it still not equal.
The content of media comment on women's sport too is still a problem. The contradiction between commentators talking about Irish swimmer Michelle Smith's wins at age 26 and their constant referral to her as "the Irish girl", for example, was stunning.
Darlinson says that some sports have tried to promote themselves on the basis of media sexism. She gives the example of the women's beach volleyball team. There is a men's beach volleyball team, but they've had far less coverage, probably because, as Darlinson points out, their "uniforms" are very different. Quite apart from the concern about skin cancer in these ozone-thinned days, the pictures of women leaping about in rather skimpy outfits feeds on and reinforces sexist stereotypes of women's bodies.
Women were admitted to olympic competition only 96 years ago. No doubt the absence of women from some olympic sports — there is no women's water polo, for example — is a legacy of that. Women in Australia are now preparing to make the 2000 olympics — the centennial of women's participation — the "women's olympics" as never before.
To really achieve that, women sports players, commentators, coaches and funding to women's sport will have to start receiving due recognition, boosting the sporting opportunities for all women.
By Jennifer Thompson