Friday, August 13, 2010

Is there favoritism towards women in sports coverage?


Is it only my own impression or are readers of newspapers being pressured to pay more attention to women's sports? Every time you open a sports page, the coverage of women's althletics seem completely out of proportion to the actual interest in it. You feel like you should have an interest, even if you don't--that there's an implicit finger being wagged at you.

Well, turns out the coverage does appear to be out of alignment.

It's one thing to watch men sweat and grunt and spit, but another to watch women do it.

Nothing personal.

11 comments:

Art said...

Great! Another essay in which Martin shows he has zero - 0! - math literacy.

Reflecting, I am sure, the expectations attendant with a classical Christian education.

Art said...

I guess I should add that this essay is especially ironic, following as it does a diatribe castigating Myers for his supposed shortcomings.

Martin Cothran said...

Great, another comment in which which Art makes assertions and no arguments or evidence whatsoever.

Reflecting, I am sure, the expectations attendant with a narrow scientific education

Singring said...

Martin, using your logic you have conclusively proved that the under-represntation of women in virtually every position of high power and responsibility, eb it in poitics, public officeor private industry is due to a bias in our society. Where is your outrage against the mistreatment of women/ Where is your outrage against the misogeny inherent in the political system?

I feel sorry for you if these are the things you feel necessitate a post while the vast numbers of other examples where women are routinely disfavoured don't elicit as much as a shrug from you.

Lee said...

Women are so oppressed in this country that they comprise only about 60% of the college students and hold more than 50% of the jobs, since the recession has been primarily a man-cession.

When are they going to get an even break? Maybe when they have 70% of the jobs and the college attendance, it will be a step in the right direction!

Singring said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Singring said...

'and hold more than 50% of the jobs'

Lee, reality has a liberal bias, you know? Here are the facts:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

As you will be able to see, the most recent stats available for 2010 show that women are UNDER-represented in the workforce in relation to the portion of the population of the US they represent.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.

Here are some more of those pescy facts:

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/ted_20091021.htm

Women workers earn less. So even IF your fantasy numbers were accurate, all that would mean is that you are telling us that women earn even less on an hourly basis that these numbers would indicate - exacerbating the inequality.

Lee said...

I do stand corrected, Singring. What I meant to say is that the recession has hurt men far out of proportion to women.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/its-not-just-a-recession-its-a-mancession/20991/

KyCobb said...

Back to the original post, is Martin seriously arguing that the Media is under-reporting the NBA? Just how many hours of speculation a day about which team LeBron was headed to did you want to listen to Martin?

Singring said...

'What I meant to say is that the recession has hurt men far out of proportion to women.'

I don't doubt it. Any recession is unwelcome and has severe consequences for a society. The numbers in the article you cite are quite dramatic. But to use this kid of data as an emotional talking point against equality is just not right and not based on facts.

Lee said...

> But to use this kid of data as an emotional talking point against equality is just not right and not based on facts.

Well, as I just showed, it is based on facts. Nor do I see why you're the only one permitted to use emotional talking points.