"Hottest" Women in Sport

The first thing that appeared when I searched for “Women in Sport” on the Internet was a suggested link titled; “Hottest Women in Sports”. And the very first thing that popped into my head was:
In class recently we have been talking a lot about how, in the past, women, especially white women, have been scrutinized for their participation in sport. Most people thought female athletes were “too masculine” and that exercise in any way was not at all feminine and could actually be potentially dangerous to their health and well-being. In our readings , we learned that the white press would either touch on a woman’s athletic ability and relate her to male athletics by masculine descriptive words, trying to belittle or complain about her image, or associate a woman athlete’s success in sport with flowery, pretty words, in an attempt to keep her feminized. Female athletes that had muscles and who sweated defied common beliefs that sport and exercise was not for women. Females were viewed as ones who should be things like; pretty all the time, working in the home, and pretty much all around subordinate to males. And when females started participating in sport and exercise, which at the time was only acceptable for males, people started criticizing them. Although these women were pioneers for future women athletes to come, my finding of the “hottest women in sports” link on the internet proves that there are still some of the same beliefs out there that women should always act a certain way, especially look a certain way. Just in that one link, a “feminine” word was used. The link “Hottest Women in Sport” shows me that someone out there is trying to keep women in sport feminized. There could have been other links along the lines of “Great Women in Sport” or “Talented Women in Sport”, but the use of the word “hottest” brought me right back to our readings when people were keeping women feminized by using “girly” words in their writing. When I clicked on the link, pictures of the cover of Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition came up. Everyone knows how these pictures are, beautiful women in tiny bikinis, showing off their lean bodies. These pictures are another way that society is still keeping female athletes feminized. They almost all have the same image; lean, not too muscular body, pretty face, pretty hair, ideal female. Out of four pictures, only one was a woman athlete in-action. This shows that not everyone out there feminizes female athletes but, gender emphasis is definitely still out there in the world of Women in Sport.


Danielle C
KIN 338i.01