It's kind of ironic that the topic we have been focusing on the past couple weeks, following the panel debates, is female athletes in the media. I have been challenged on many different levels since we've began reading articles and watching films on the portrayal, exploitation, and under-representativeness/appreciation of female athletes.

Going into the panel presentations, and even at the end of the debate, I was very much stuck on my personal thoughts, opinions, and ideas that it is very much acceptable for female athletes to pose nude or provacatively. I believed, and still somewhat believe, that they work hard for their bodies and they should be able to show it off proudly, but I never really thought about the way other people may percieve these photos or the many subliminal messages that they send to young girls and boys, and even adults.

I have been clueless to the struggles of women in sport to get to where we are today. I only see women empowered and on top, I didn't have to experience the descrimination and the difficulties in sports for women. But now that I have learned about all the hardships that women went through so that we could be where we are today, I have been easily persuade to have a different view on the way female athletes are portrayed in the media. I still believe that it is good for female athletes to be proud and comfortable with their bodies, but that they should be educated in the past of women in sport.

There are so many underlying messages in the portrayal of women in the media that many people are unaware of: posing with their children and husband, wearing make up and feminine outfits, camera angles, and more. But maybe this is just the current ideals of female athletes today. Maybe the past concerns and accusations are in the past, and this is the way women truly want to be portrayed, with no underlying fears of people thinking they are homosexual or too masculine. I wear bows and skirts because I like to wear them and I think they're cute. There is really nothing else to it.


Kyndall Hagens
KIN 338I Sec. 01