The 2016 Olympics have, so far, done a fantastic job of proving that women are just as capable of being world class athletes as men…but the media doesn’t. So far, female Olympians have had their amazing achievements credited to their husbands, had their names left out of the press, and have been said to perform like men. Oh, and women in general have been blamed by NBC for the one hour delayed broadcasts.
The sexist language used in sports commentary was brought to light by researchers at Cambridge, who analyzed decades’ worth of media and found that while men are usually described in professional, sporting language, women are “disproportionately described in relation to their marital status, age or appearance.” Researcher Sarah Grieves was interviewed by CNN Sport before the Olympics began. She stated that her research does not provide definitive answers and that its point is mainly to bring public awareness to language used when speaking about genders in sports. And there have been some mind-blowing examples during this year’s Olympics.
On Saturday, Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszú won gold in the 400-meter individual medley, breaking a world record simultaneously. And, when her amazing achievement was shown on NBC, the camera panned over to Hosszú’s husband and coach, Shane Tusup, and commentator Dan Hicks said, “and there’s the man responsible for turning Katinka Hosszú into a whole different swimmer.” Last I checked, her husband, no matter how well he coached Hosszú, could not swim for her. This victory belonged to Katinka Hosszú, not her husband. As is to be expected in 2016, the internet immediately berated Dan Hicks for the comment. Hicks later apologized, stating that he “wished he’d said things differently.” Still, you would never see the wife or coach of a male athlete being held responsible for the athlete’s victory.
Then, after NBC’s blunder, another media outlet decided to erase a female athlete in favor of her husband. The Chicago Tribune received heavy criticism for its tweet, which stated: “Wife of a Bears’ lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics.” The athlete was Corey Cogdell-Unrein, who won the bronze in women’s trap shooting. The actual article doesn’t improve the initial impression of many who saw the tweet—who thought that it focused far too much on Cogdell-Unrein’s husband. If this was an article about her, why is he relevant? It refers to Cogdell-Unrein as a wife more than as an athlete, and only talks about her for two paragraphs, barely mentioning that she is a third time Olympian and that this is her second Olympic medal. The paper stated that they tried to localize the story through Cogdell’s husband, which, unfortunately, included pushing Cogdell’s achievements to the side.
NBC made another sexist comment last night, during the women’s gymnastics competition. The comment was made after the phenomenal U.S. women’s gymnastics team completely dominated their competition by ten points, when the young women on team were gathered together celebrating on the sidelines. The unnamed commentator said, “They might as well be standing in the middle of a mall.” The comment might seem innocuous at first, but the reality is that it dismisses the athletes and is, quite frankly, something that would never be said about a team of male gymnasts.
