Welcome,

I am Junior Rodrigue final year student at Keele university with the mind set to

produce a piece of work that would effect the males gaze on female sport.

Through my time in Keele university I have developed and learned skills, that

can now be put into practice.

Being in my final year at Keele university, I have the opportunities to create a

piece of work as my final year project. I decided to create a sport magazine be-

cause of my passion football and the fact that I find every sport interesting. The

magazine was meant to bring up the differences between gender in sport, I

personality never experiment anything like that but being at keele for four years

I made a lot of friends and some of them are women who are involved in sport.

While doing the researches on female sport, I realised the measure of effort

between male and female to be set on different cultural expectations mostly

dominate by males.

This inspired me to create this magazine and show the success of Keele

sportswomen have achieved throughout the years: this year in particular. The

success of women sports around campus have been unbelievable, this year

they toped it up by dominating varsity 2013.

I hope you will be enjoying this magazine and develop a new mind set on the

topic on the female gaze in sports as this marks my summary after four years

of involvement and being this year vice captain of the men football at Keele

university.

Enjoy,

Junior Rodrigue.

5

When we talk about women and gender differ-

ences in sport, the topic is sometimes described

as a contradiction; in general sport appears to

be is dominated by the male. The main empha-

sis was to elaborate on the question ‘what does

it takes to be a successful in sport’, to under-

stand and be able to answer the question above

we looked at the conventional wisdom definition

of being a successful sport person, the defini-

tion is the very ideal for a man, as it suggested

it that you would need strength, power, aggres-

sion, and confidence. They also appear to sug-

gest that women are the total opposite, they are

describe as inferior weak, incompetent, cooper-

ative, passive, timid and vulnerable. Based on

these descriptions it is clear that men should

have the upper hand over women on all sport

related matters.

Based on how society views gender it is often

the case that when a woman is successful in

sport she is suddenly seen as a challenge to

the gender order created by society and this

can lead to a sense of unwelcomeness in the

world of sport. It looked that the media in sport

do support that ideology so seemed to focus a

lot more around sport that are male oriented

e.g. Sky Sport News by looking at the setting of

the studio and the cast. It’s clearly set to appeal

to a male audience and that can also be ob-

serve through the language used and tone used

during the programme, there is one of the acci-

dent on Skysport news that showed the mind

set and the sexism within the cast and produc-

tion. Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and

Richard Keys were at the centre of a sexism

row, as they were analysing the football game,

they noticed a situation where the female lines-

man Sian Massey didn’t make the correct deci-

sion. Both presenters were thinking that they

were off air and went on and said Comments on

Ms Massey, Mr Keys said: ‘Somebody better

get down there and explain offside to her.’

Mr Gray, a former Scottish international foot-

baller, replied: ‘Can you believe that? A female

linesman. Women don’t know the offside rule.’

Mr Keys replied: ‘Course they don’t. I can guar-

antee you there will be a big one today. Kenny

(Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish) will go

potty. This isn’t the first time, is it? Didn’t we

have one before?’ 

Later in the exchange, Mr Keys said: ‘The

game’s gone mad. Did you hear charming Kar-

ren Brady this morning complaining about sex-

ism? Do me a favour, love. Those kind of

situation support the suggestion that media is

strongly male oriented .

Regardless of how the media or society ad-

dress gender in sport, according to Arthur et al

it’s impossible to ignore the accomplishment of

women athletes in the last decade for example

the advent of professional women’s basketball;

the proliferation of websites and magazines

dedicated to woman’s sport and fitness; the

stunning victories of American sport women at

the 1994 winter Olympics; the so-called

“Olympics of the women” (the 1996 Atlanta

Summer Games); the growing popularity of

women’s tennis; the emergence of successful

women’s team sports, such as the 1999

women’s world cup soccer championship that

generated unprecedented support. All of these

events seem to suggest that women's sport

now occupies an increasingly significant place

in our cultural world.

The message behind this article is to let the

readers know that women’s participation in

sport has a long history, which shows that

8

women also had success in sport but wentthrough difficulties to be able to achieve thatpresence in sport. A history marked by divisionand discrimination but also one filled with majoraccomplishments by female athletes and impor-tant advances for gender equality and the em-powerment of women and girls. It’s important toacknowledge the difference and the positive im-pact created by feminist movements in term ofthe way woman sport is mediated and treatedaround the world.Here we got a list of incredible athletes who af-

fect sport in a positive way through their suc-cess as female athlete. Achievements are thoseof Helene Madison of the United States ofAmerica, the first woman to swim the 100-yardfreestyle in one minute at the 1932 Olympics;Maria-Teresa de Filippis of Italy, the first womanto compete in a European Grand Prix auto racein 1958; Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco, thefirst woman from an Islamic nation to win anOlympic medal for the 400-metre hurdles at the1984 Olympics; and Tegla Loroupe of Kenya,who in 1994 became the first African woman towin a major marathon.1 Women have taken uptop leadership positions in sport, such as Presi-dents and Secretaries-General of NationalOlympic Committees. More and more womenhave also taken up employment opportunities inall areas of sport, including as coaches, man-agers, officials and sport journalists.These achievements were made in the face ofnumerous barriers based on gender discrimina-tion. As Women were often perceived as beingtoo weak for sport, particularly endurance

sports, such as marathons, weightlifting and cy-

cling, and it was often argued in the past that

sport was harmful to women’s health, particu-

larly their reproductive health. In 1896, Baron

Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern

Olympics, stated: “No matter how toughened a

sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut

out to sustain certain shocks.” Such stereotypes

fuelled gender-based discrimination in physical

education and in recreational and competitive

sport, sporting organizations and sport media.

The idea of this article is to elaborate on the

gender differences in sport. Firstly I will show

how sports like football, rugby and basketball

are more interpreted and mediated as a male

sport. This will be broken into different parts: a)

the lack of female presenters in media coverage

of these particular sports b) the hierarchy within

these sports organisations which are mainly

dominate by men and c) the ideology that

women are not physically built for these sports.

The second part of the article will focus on the

way the gender predicament is viewed in single

sports such as swimming and fencing. This part

will also be broken down into sections A) How is

a gender difference less noticeable in a single

sport and that there seems to be a sense of

equality between both genders. B) Finally the

conclusion will look at the similarities and differ-

ences between both points and how sport is de-

veloping by maturing in that specific department

(gender) the article will mention some of the

techniques used to stop the gender inequality in

sport.

9

Association football (also known as soccer, par-

ticularly in North America) is widely known to be

the world's most popular team sport. Football's

global governing body, the Fédération Interna-

tionale de Football Association (FIFA), has 208

national member associations, and produce a

massive tournament, called the World Cup fi-

nals, it is played every four years before a

worldwide television audience. “Giulianotti and

Robertson (2004, 2007, and 2009) have ex-

plored the complex and increasingly significant

interrelationships of globalization and football,

with specific reference to their historical, cul-

tural, economic, political, and social dimen-

sions”.

This article looked at the involvement of boys

and girls in playground football. It is based on

research conducted with 10- to 11-year-old

pupils at two state primary schools in London.

How the children involvements in the play-

ground football shaped and draw on the con-

struction of boys and girls. Many boys who were

heavily involved in football and prove both their

knowledge and interest in sport showed an in-

crease in masculinity. These findings led to the

suggestion that non-footballing boys or girls are

more likely to be deride and exclude. Links be-

tween humility, restraint, niceness and feminin-

ity also had a negative impact on girls’ involve-

ment in the sport. Prohibitions around desire

and determination proved especially damaging

to girls’ attempts at ownership and assertive-

ness within the game. This was compounded by

boys’ co-optation of football as ‘inherently mas-

culine’. Girls’ resistance strategies to male dom-

ination of the football pitch tended to focus on

disruption and rarely resulted in equal participa-

tion. This was due to opposition from powerful

boys as well as entrenched gendered zones of

play that granted boys automatic rights to foot-

ball and girls only marginal tenancy.

Sports have been seen as a highly potent site

for the development of masculine identity and,

as the dominant sport in many countries; it is

football that is especially linked to masculinity,

national and local identities. Base on that idea

that football identity is masculine, the increasing

number of women entering the field of football

have be seen as a direct threat to masculine

identity, which would make football a significant

site of gender conflict.

History of Football, B

Basketball is a team sport; the objective of the

sport is being able to shoot a ball through a

basket horizontally positioned to score points

while following a set of rules which make the

sport more competitive. Usually, two teams of

five players play on a marked rectangular court

with a basket at each width end but could also

be played with fewer players’ in that case only

one size of the court and basket would be use.

Basketball is one of the world's most popular

and widely viewed sports. A regulation basket-

ball hoop consists of a rim 18 inches (46 cm) in

diameter and 10 feet (3.0 m) high mounted to a

backboard. A team can score a field goal by

shooting the ball through the basket during reg-

ular play. There are a set of rules determine

how many point each basket worth, the rule is a

field goal scores is worth two points for the

shooting team and that is determine from

where the player is when making the basket, if

a player is touching or closer to the basket than

its two point. The three-point line also known as

three points would be basket scored by players

from behind the three-point line. The team with

the most points at the end of the game wins, but

additional time (overtime) may be issued when

the game ends with a draw. One of the impor-

tant rule of basketball is how to travel with the

ball. The sport require the player to bounce the

ball to advance on the court while walking or

running (dribbling) or throwing (passing) it to a

team mate. It is a violation to move without drib-

bling the ball known as (travelling), another vio-

lation is to carry it, or to hold the ball with both

hands then resume dribbling known as (double

dribble). Numerous violations are called "fouls."

one of the most common violations and strongly

enforce rule is a disruptive physical contact on

an offensive player known as (a personal foul)

is normally penalised with a free throw which is

usually awarded to an offensive player if he is

fouled while shooting the ball. Through the

games there is a large number of technical fouls

that may also be issued it occur when certain

infractions are made, in most situations it’s for

unsportsmanlike conduct on the part of a player

or coach. A technical foul gives the opposing

team a free throw, and the opposing team also

retains possession of the ball. Basketball has

evolved many commonly used techniques of

shooting, passing, dribbling, and rebounding, as

well as specialised player positions and offen-

sive and defensive structures (player position-

ing) and techniques. Typically, the tallest

members of a team will play "center", "power

forward" or "small forward" positions those are

positions that involved winning the rebound and

blocking, while shorter players or those who

possess the best ball handling skills and speed

play "point guard" or "shooting guard" those

players are more likely to play the attacking po-

sitions. While competitive basketball is carefully

regulated, numerous variations of basketball

have developed for casual play. Competitive

basketball is primarily an indoor sport played on

a carefully marked and maintained basketball

court, but less regulated variations are often

played outdoors in both inner city and remote

areas.

13

asketball and Rugby

In early December 1891, Canadian American

Dr. James Naismith, a physical education pro-

fessor and instructor at the International Young

Men's Christian Association Training

School(YMCA) (today, Springfield College) in

Springfield, Massachusetts, USA), this is how

he came up with the creation of the sport, he

was trying to keep his gym class active on a

rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to

keep his students occupied and at proper levels

of fitness during the long New England winters.

After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or

poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote

the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto

a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track. In contrast

with modern basketball nets, this peach basket

retained its bottom, and balls had to be re-

trieved manually after each "basket" or point

scored; this proved inefficient and slow the

game down, however, he decided to removed

the bottom of the basket which allowed the balls

to go through the basket and speed up the

game instead of having to collect the ball each

time. Basketball was originally played with a

soccer ball.Until the 1950s when Tony Hinkle

decided to search for a ball that would be more

visible, which led to the creation of the orange

ball that is commonly in use. Dribbling was not

part of the original game except for the "bounce

pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the

primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was

eventually introduced but limited by the asym-

metric shape of early balls. Just like the new

ball dribbling only became a major part of the

game around the 1950s, as manufacturing im-

proved the ball shape it led to the improvement

of the sport in general. The changes did stop

there eventually the creation of metal hoops

with backboard came through in the 1906 to re-

place the peach baskets. A further change was

soon made on the basket, so that the ball could

merely pass through. The improvement of tech-

nology also led to change such as whenever a

person got the ball in the basket, his team

would gain a point automatically. The major rule

stayed the same whichever team got the most

points won the game. The baskets were origi-

nally nailed to the mezzanine balcony but the

fact that spectators could interfere with the shot

it led to the creation of the backboard which

provided support for the basket and also made

the sport more competitive as it created another

way of scoring baskets. In early 2006 Nai-

smith's granddaughter discovered his handwrit-

ten diaries, it elaborated on the Naismith’s

worries and was nervous about the new game

he had invented, which introduced rules from a

children's game called "Duck on a Rock", as

many had failed before it. Naismith called the

new game "Basket Ball". The first official bas-

ketball game was played in the YMCA gymna-

sium in Albany, New York on January 20, 1892

with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the

shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m). A lot

changed from that game, present days the court

is double the size and now the game is played

with five players since 1897. National Basket-

ball Association (NBA) is now the biggest bas-

ketball organisation.

14

Rugby union is often referred to as rugby; it is a

full contact team sport which originated in Eng-

land in the early 19th century. One of the two

important rules of rugby is: it is based on run-

ning with the ball in hand which could be kick as

well. It is played with an oval-shaped ball with a

maximum width and length of 30 centimetres

(12 in) and 62 centimetres (24 in) respectively.

It is played on a field up to 100 metres (330 ft)

long and 70 metres (230 ft) wide with H-shaped

goal posts on each goal line. William Webb Ellis

is often the name mentioned with the invention

of running with the ball in hand. In 1823 at

Rugby School when he allegedly caught the ball

while playing football and ran towards the oppo-

sition goal. However, there are not enough evi-

dences for the story which made it doubtful. In

1845, Rugby school pupils wrote the first foot-

ball laws which led to the significant events in

1863 of the early development of rugby which

included the decision of the Blackheath Club's

to come apart from football association and split

between rugby union and rugby league in 1895.

Historically rugby was an amateur sport; but in

1995 the International Rugby Board (IRB) re-

moved restrictions on payments to players, and

allowed the sport to go and open for profes-

sional so that the game could be played at the

highest level for the first time. The IRB has

been the governing body for rugby union since

its formation in 1886. Rugby union become pop-

ular and spread from the Home Nations of

Great Britain and Ireland, and was getting a lot

of attentions from many of the countries associ-

ated with the British Empire. Early exponents of

the sport included Australia, New Zealand and

South Africa. Rugby union became very popular

and was the national sport for the following

countries: Georgia, New Zealand, Samoa,

Tonga and Wales. Rugby union is played in

over 100 countries across six continents and as

of 27 November 2012, the IRB has 100 full

members and 18 associate members. The

Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, takes

place every four years just like football, with the

winner of the tournament receiving the Webb

Ellis Cup. The Six Nations Championship in Eu-

rope and The Rugby Championship in the

Southern Hemisphere (the latter replacing the

Tri Nations) are major international competitions

held annually. Major domestic competitions in-

clude the Top 14 in France, the English Pre-

miership in England, the Currie Cup in South

Africa, and the ITM Cup in New Zealand. Other

transnational competitions include the Pro 12,

involving Irish, Italian, Scottish and Welsh

teams; and the Heineken Cup, involving the top

European teams from their respective domestic

competitions.

Lack of female presenters in sports media has

been showed through media Coverage of

Women’s Sport, a lot have been written (by

feminist linguists in particular) about the ways in

which language shapes our view of the world

(Cameron, 1995; Coates, 2004). Theories of lin-

guistic determinism and relativity (such as the

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) discuss the ways in

which we use language as a tool for (re-)con-

structing reality. Spender (1980) is convincing in

her arguments about ways in which language, it

used to reflect and reinforce the males gaze on

society in which we live, and helps maintain the

secondary status of women. This can be see

through their presentation of women’s sport in

the media. The sports media have played an

important role in the male dominance of sport,

by being own and control by males at the top of

the pyramid and those men make sure to en-

force their masculinity throughout the sport

media. Wensing and Bruce in 2003 suggested

that Sport is undoubtedly and overwhelmingly

constructed in the mass media as a male do-

main, ‘with professional male sport represented

at the pinnacle of sporting value and achieve-

ment’ (Wensing and Bruce, 2003). Indeed,

many benefits from the dominant position of

masculinity in social structures are led to de-

velop many difficulties for sportswomen (Con-

nell in 1997 refers to this as ‘patriarchal

dividend’) and this includes sport. The power of

the sports media to shape the public conscious-

ness about gender should not be understated

and taken lightly: sports writers construct a

sense of reality which is culturally encoded and

created a mind set to young people that women

are not suitable for sport.

We need to understand that prejudices can be

reproduced, consciously or sub-consciously,

and Connell suggested that they are usually

based on patriarchal ideologies. Once that ide-

ologies is created we could see the effect on

young people in the way that girls wouldn’t be

interested in sport as now they developed the

ideology that sport is not suitable for woman

and boys will grow up discriminating toward

woman in sport as them too also develop the

ideology that sport is for man. We should all

agree with Blain (2003) who quite rightly attrib-

utes great power to the media, as the media

has that power to create ideologies and also re-

inforce previous ideology and when that power

is in the wrong hand, it could produce so much

injustice and discriminations as we see toward

woman present in sport: this could be see

throughout the amount of coverage male and

female receive. Evidence showed that male get

a lot more coverage than woman would in sport.

we came across to type of coverage that could

be observe to determine if there is a difference

between male and female amount of coverage

there are: the amount of coverage and the na-

ture of the coverage.

i) Amount of Coverage

amount of coverage have been looked on

through a number of detailed analyses of a

quantitative nature studies. Most of them have

been carried out to find out (usually in the US,

which are a leader in this field) the amount of

space dedicated to male and female sportspeo-

ple (Duncan et al., 1994; Eastman and Billings,

1999). As predicted and mentioned above, in

many of those studies the space dedicated to

men’s sports exceeds that devoted to women’s

(e.g. Bishop, 2003; Messner and Duncan,

2003). Those findings have proven that the

sports media has contributed to prolonging in-

equalities between male and female in sports

via its lack of coverage of women: in America

women are excluded almost entirely in some

sports, and at some times of the year.

Sports audiences usually experience sports

through many different mass media. According

to Nathalie Koivula to increase our understand-

ing of sport media on cultural values; and fur-

thermore to elaborate on the current values and

power structures regarding men and women.

Nathalie Koivula went on and quote Mass

media is a powerful factor which influences our

beliefs, attitudes, and values we have of our-

selves and others as well as the world sur-

rounding us” so if it reinforcing the suggestions

that women are not suited for sport through the

mass media power it would eventually influence

16

our belief just like the quote above suggested.

By acknowledging the power of media in any

form it’s clear to understand the problem cause

by the lack of women present in sport media.

The media is creating the ideology that women

are not good at physical contact sport. Due to

the lack of a female option in the sport media

cooperation, especially the portrayal of men and

women with regard to how sport is presented as

a socially constructed reality in the ongoing con-

struction of gender has been discussed in sev-

eral research papers (Cohen, 1993; Duncan &

Brummet, 1987; Kane & Parks, 1992; Klein,

1988; Morgan, 1982; Perloff, Brown, & Cronk,

1986). The majority of this work has not only

shown the dissimilar and unequal ways in which

men and women athletes have been pictured,

but also considered the possible consequences

this may have on (1) social construction gender

and gender difference, (2) the stratification of

society of society by gender, and (3) strength-

ening of the myth of female passivity and frailty.

Another theme involves how the sport and

media interaction presents traditional expecta-

tions of femininity and masculinity, including the

perspective that there exist masculine sports

appropriate only for men ( e.g., football, Rugby

and basketball) and more feminine sports ap-

propriate or exclusive to women (e.g., figure

skating,, gymnastics, synchronized swimming) (

Koivula, 1995; Matteo, 1986).

The lack of female in the sport mass media

could be seen in all the three sport mentioned

above. From the main football organisation

FIFIA which has always been dominated by

men and which is the top of the pyramid in

terms of football sport organisations as they

make all the decisions. This male dominated

managerial structure runs throughout all main

football structures. This is also true about the

way the media report football. It is being medi-

ated by men and this is based on the fact that

the target audience are men, so the sport has

been mediated in a very masculine way and

barely had any female figure associated with

the discipline. E.g., major sport media such as

sky sport with more than four channels all dedi-

cated to sport, mainly football. Sports studios

and match side commentary are all dominated

by men. These are the only women involved in

sky sport news and they are limited to certain

types of commentary Georgie Thompson, Char-

lotte Jackson, Charlie Webster, Kirsty Gal-

lacher, Olivia Godfrey, Millie Clode, Hayley

Mcqueen. “450 news stories broadcast by five

Australian television networks over a period of

one week indicated that men were generally

over-represented as presenters, reporters, and

expert sources. Female reporters predominated

only in low-frequency, lower-ranked subjects.

Although expert sources were mostly male,

male and female reporters did not differ in their

use of male or female sources. Despite in-

creased participation of women in journalism,

findings indicate a lasting association of men

with higher status stories, source authority,

sport, and hard news” (David J. Cann & Philip

B. Mohr 2001). The number of men involved in

sky sport news and commentary is more than

double that of female it is created and under-

stood as a male base discipline. This also influ-

ences the way the media will focus more on

men’s football and show less interest in

women's football, the lack of a female presen-

ters within the media organisation restricts the

media and it is unable stretch and explore

women's football, which has been growing very

fast in the past years. We will also find the

same set up for rugby; Rugby is more aggres-

sive and masculine than any of the other sports

mentioned above. This creates an even greater

challenge for women in the media in that they

are rarely involved in the commentary; those

women who are involved do the updates. This

could be seen to reinforce the ideology of gen-

der and gender difference created by the mass

media and how it has influenced the audience

to believe perceptions’ of what women should

be involved in terms of sports. People therefore

associate certain sport with different genders,

those that are masculine and appropriate or ex-

clusive to men (e.g., football, Rugby and bas-

ketball) and more feminine sports appropriate or

exclusive to women (e.g., figure skating, gym-

17

nastics, synchronized swimming).

When it comes to basketball, the discipline has-

n’t really left America and is not as popular

around the world. It is a worldwide sport but

strongly based in America. Basketball would

have the same set up as the two mentioned

above it is a male based sport and would have

men at the top of the pyramid dictating the rule

and make the decisions, however, basketball

contrasts with the idea of gender difference be-

cause of the growth of women's basketball e.g.

female college basketball teams created an

equality and acceptance of women being in-

volved and playing the sport. Basketball is chal-

lenging the dominant ideology and stereotypes

that are found in football and Rugby namely that

you have to be a man to participate in the sport

and that can mean playing, watching or com-

mentary.

18

Research on this topic focus on the processes

and dynamics that structure gender in organisa-

tions. More specifically, the purpose of under-

standing and explain how organisational elites

(males) work to recreate themselves in order to

retain their power on sport media, and how

women collude in this process this structure

could be seen through all the team sports men-

tioned above especially in football and Rugby

regardless of the level it is played at even within

amateur sport the structure is still male domi-

nated with a lack of female presenters and their

opinions. The Study below showed that there is

a difference in gender roles and mind sets

within sports organisations. “The empirical data

which was drawn from in-depth interviews with

over 70 women and men who hold professional

and key volunteer positions in one of five Cana-

dian national sport organisations. The specific

focus was, however, a critical assessment of

the plausible explanations for these observa-

tions. They drew upon the theoretical and em-

pirical literature in four areas: voluntary

participation and associations, organizational

culture, critical organization theory, and most

important, feminist perspectives on organization

theory. They study was conducted to attempt to

explain the relations between women and

men in a specific organizational context and

how these relations can be changed so as to

bring about a more equitable gender balance”.

(M. Ann Hall, Dallas Cullen & Trevor

Slack1989).

“The ideology that women are not physically

builds for the sports. Sport has been viewed for

a long time, within feminist and sociological

studies, as a sexist and patriarchal institution. In

the broader context, as equal opportunities for

men and women have become a legal require-

ment in Europe, and the gender gap narrows, it

has been argued that sport remains one of the

last bastions of masculinity” (Cohen, 1993;

Duke and Crolley, 1996; Messner and Sabo,

1990). Through this understanding and the in-

terventions of feminists’ point of view on the hi-

erarchy of media sport, we can now see the

changes and appreciation of female contribu-

tions in sport. However Llopis noticed that in

Spain, sport has been recognised as a domain

in which masculine identities are still created

and reproduced. Sport still seen as that mascu-

line force but the more female involvement the

less masculine it’s becoming and eventually

would reach that balance where regardless the

location sport would just be and see as a male

dominated field. Messner (1988) described the

female athlete as being ‘a contested ideological

terrain’ and organized sport as being ‘a funda-

mental arena of ideological contest in items of

power relations between men and women’.

Similarly, Brookes (2002: 123) argued convinc-

ingly that, ‘Sport plays a key role in legitimizing

particular ideologies around masculinity and

femininity that support the domination of men

over women’.

These theories above were also supported by

Whannel (2002) throughout his analysis of the

portrayal of sport and masculinity in the media.

He suggested that Sports feminists also agree

with us and claim that women are seen as a de-

viation from male. They suggest that sport

media patriarchal ideology and reinforces tradi-

tional gender roles and stereotypical images of

femininity in term of male should be stronger

and more build than females, so when it comes

to physical discipline sports men would be bet-

ter at it than woman (Creedon, 1994). This

study provides an important contribution to our

understanding of the construction of gender

identities and the implications of sport media on

creating gender differences.

Now we can all see that There is clearly in-

equalities between males and females in terms

of participation in sport at all levels, however

women have made a lot of progress to be

where they are as they have to deal with a lot of

20

The Hierarchy W

barriers to now emerge in the world of sport. the

first things we could class as a difficulties are

the first early Olympics which were ran and con-

trolled by males sector organisation such as

politic and sport organisation, didn’t have any

sportswomen presence or allowed to partici-

pated in the Olympic but now participation of

women in the Olympics gradually increased es-

pecially during the 20th century. Hargreaves in

1994 suggested before the 20th century,

women never represented more than 10 per-

cent of the total number of athletes (Harg-

reaves, 1994). The change which allowed

sportswomen to participated at the Olympic ac-

tually happen during The 1996 Atlanta Games

which are regarded as an important step to-

wards equality between male/female athletes.

But event during that Olympic, women only still

represented 35 percent of competitors, and par-

ticipated in just 35 percent of all events. How-

ever the number of women participants started

to increase that’s why the Atlanta Games is

known as the first step toward gender inequality

in sport. In Sydney 2000, there were 6582 male

athletes and 4069 females (that is, some 38.2

percent female) in 25 sports and 132 events.

Furthermore Women participated in 44 percent

of the total number of events and for the first

time were including in mixed events. This was

also the first time women competed in the same

number of team sports as men. The progress

continued as in Athens 2004, women finally

competed in all sports with the exception of

baseball (softball for women) and boxing. This

led to the increase of the percentage of women

participating, for the first time their percentage

was higher than 40 percent (40.6 percent). Of a

total of 10,864 athletes, 4412 were women and

6452 men. “While it is not within the aims of this

article to discuss women’s participation in sport,

it is important to note that equal representation

or coverage of women in the media could only

be expected if the number of male and female

competitors were more or less equally distrib-

uted. What is relevant to our interpretation of

the results is that this is not the case”.( Liz Crol-

ley and Elena Teso 2007). The more women

are allowed to compete and take part in sport it

would be more likely that the amount of cover-

age that they would receive and would also in-

crease and would get a lot more attentions from

sport media and target audiences.

21

Within Sports

Swimming has also been around not necessary

as a sport discipline, however competitive

swimming as we know it today started in Ameri-

can. Swimming as a competitive sport started

around 1800 and mostly consisted of breast-

stroke which is now the main event in the disci-

pline. In 1873, John Arthur Trudgen introduced

the trudgen to Western swimming competitions;

he got the idea from copying the front crawl

style of swimming used by Native Americans

back then. Swimming was one of the first com-

petitive sports; it was also part of the first mod-

ern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. This led

to the creation of the world swimming associa-

tion, Fédération Internationale de

Natation (FINA). Competitive swimming be-

came popular in the nineteenth century. The

goal of competitive swimming is to improve in

term of speed and technique which would im-

prove time(s), or to use those skills and speed

to beat the competitors in any given event. As

every other sport in swimming, an athlete would

have to go through a cycle of training in which

the body get trained and overloaded until the

competition days in which he or she is to com-

pete in.

Fencing is typically divided into three category

type Olympic fencing, Classical fencing and his-

torical fencing. For this article we will only elab-

orate on the sport of fencing (commonly called

Olympic fencing or competitive fencing).

Olympic fencing is divided into three weapons:

foil, sabre and épée. However not to create any

confusion classical fencing do use the same

three weapons, but in classical fencing the ac-

tivity is approaches as a martial art. Competitive

Fencing is one of five sports which have been

featured at every one of the modern Olympic

Games modern fencing originated in the 18th

century in an Italian school of fencing of the

Renaissance, and, under their influence, was

improved by the French school of fencing. In

term of fencing nowadays, these two schools

are the most influential around the world. Tech-

nology improve he discipline, fencing started

using épée in 1936 and replaced the side-

judges with an electrical scoring apparatus, with

a system build up in which can differ between a

point or not, this was achieved through the use

of tone and a red or green light indicating when

a touch landed. The scoring box reduced the

bias in judging, and permitted more accurate

scoring of faster actions, lighter touches.

The gender differences is barely visible when

talking about single sport, during the Olympic

female and male swimmers did receive the

same attention from the media, the only gender

difference that could be observed was the use

of certain words to describe the male athletes

wouldn’t be used to describe the female one

e.g. powerful, barely any female athletes were

describe as powerful. Fencing, swimming and

other single sports didn’t show any inequality

between male and female the media showed in-

terest and the same amount of coverage for

both male and female discipline. There is a con-

trast between the ways the gender predicament

is viewed in single sport compare to team sport.

Based on the studies above it is clear that team

sports show more gender difference through

amount of media coverage than single sports.

24

Gender Predicament in Single Sports

n this magazine we have looked at gender dif-

ference in sport and how the sport media affect

gender inequality. We have noticed that it is

very hard to find gender inequality within single

sport disciplines compare to team sport. The

sport mentioned and observed earlier were

swimming and fencing, these two disciplines

have very mixed genders of participants. Swim-

ming is strongly mediated for both gender fe-

male and male, they seem to receive the same

coverage. E.g. during the Olympics the media

coverage for swimming was not just focussing

on the male discipline like they would for teams

sports such as Rugby. However the sport media

coverage showed a lot more interests to the

male teams sport such as football and didn’t

show the same interests for female teams sport

to some degree.

An example where the sport media treated male

participants differently than female athletes,

they are doing so by focus on one athlete. In

the 2012 Olympics for the swimming discipline,

Michael Phelps from the USA received a lot of

attention from the media due to his incredible

performances and record breaking throughout

the competition. Michael Phelps made his first

Olympic appearances and swimming career at

the age of a 15-year-old in Sydney in 2000, at

that Olympic the youngster finished fifth in the

200m Butterfly. He became a big name in swim-

ming after his historic performance in Beijing

2008 where he obtained eight gold medals. His

Games in London did not start off so well as ex-

pected, all eyes was on him to dominate swim-

ming again however he finish fourth place in the

400m Individual Medley which has been

recorded as his worst result since Sydney.

Michael Phelps was also beat by Chad le Clos

in the 200m Butterfly. However, he picked up

form and won the 100m Butterfly and 200m In-

dividual Medley as well as taking the titles in the

4 x 200m Freestyle and Medley Relay and sil-

ver in the 4 x 100m Freestyle. After such an in-

credible performance he received Texts and

phone calls from the likes of USA president

Barack Obama and he was presented with a

FINA lifetime achievement award by President

Julio Maglione.' Phelps now focuses on his

Swimming foundation. Phelps said after his final

swim: 'It's hard to put into words right now. I did

everything I wanted to and finished my career

how I wanted to. 'I've always said that I don't

care what anybody else says, if I can say that

about my career that's all that matters.'

This seemed to contradict with the suggestion

that there is less sense of gender differences

within swimming as it’s a single sport indeed

Michael Phelps did get acknowledgement by

the media for his successful campaign, however

female athletes who were part of the swimming

discipline in the London Olympic and probably

did as well as Michael Phelps, they didn’t get ig-

nored but they didn’t received similar coverage

and attention when achieving Olympic medals.

When females’ athletes achieved success in

sport, they will not obtain media coverage in the

same way as the male athletes. If the female

football team winning the world championship

would be mediated and showed a lot of inter-

ests but not as big as male football team win-

ning the world championship. There is some of

the females swimmers who got mentioned by

the media e.g. Missy Franklin, 17, won five

medals - four of them gold - while Ryan

Lochte will also took home five, including two ti-

tles. Katie Ledecky made a great start to her

senior career, by winning the 800m Freestyle on

her debut and also finish second fastest swim in

history at the age of just 15. She wasn’t the only

as Fellow 15-year-old Ruta Meilutyte of Lithua-

nia also topped the podium with her shocking

win in 100m Breaststroke.

During the Olympic we saw incredible athletes

in action special from the french who enjoyed

a success campaign in London: Yannick

Agnel anchoring the sprint relay to victory in the

final metres over the USA before taking the

200m Freestyle title. Camille Muffatbecame

only the second Frenchwoman to claim an

Olympic Swimming title when she won the

400m Freestyle, then finishing second over four

lengths.

25

On Sat 9 March 2013 Keele were host to high

flying Abbey Hulton FC.

This was Keele's 4th game in 8 days a tough

ask for any player.

It was clear from the start that AHFC were

aware of Keele's recent successes, as they

started the game with a high attacking tempo.

Keele looked a little in awe of the title chasers,

failing to impress anywhere. AHFC had the ball

in the net on 12 mins only to see the linesmans

flag aloft. On 17 mins AHFC forced a corner on

the right, the resultant corner was fired in chest

high to the near post where it was headed

home from an acute angle by Nathan Chin-

shaw, 0-1.

Keele had the chance of a quick reply when

Junior Rodrigue brushed aside several chal-

lenges to cross into the near post where Dan

Brundrett fired over. A second chance came

Keele's way as Si Agrawal beat his man on the

right cutting inside to beat a second defender,

he was well inside the penalty area but made

no decision to shoot or pass, doing neither to

pass weakly into the keeper, a chance lost.

AHFC showed Keele how to score, the ball was

punted deep into the Keele half where it was

picked up by the dangerous Lee Cropper who

brushed aside several weak challenges to slide

home from close range. 0-2, 29 mins. Keele

were not up to their usual standard, with Mikey

Hewitt finding it hard to find space, and both

Playford and Agrawal both well marshaled. Jun-

ior Rodrigue was having some success as he

frequently outpaced the AHFC back four, sadly

support was not getting to him in time to make

the attacks meaningful. HT..0-2

Keele had to make an half time as they lost the

services of Si Agrawal with a recurrence of his

ankle strain. Jrn R. moved to the wide berth and

Tom Butterfield came in up front. JR continued

his valiant efforts on the right having several

fine runs to torment his full back. As the 2nd half

settled Keele started to look the stronger team

with Williams starting to support attacks from

his defensive position. One such foray saw him

being smashed to the ground, with hapless ref-

eree not giving the penalty, good linesman work

saved the day and after a short conversation

the penalty was awarded. After his miss last

week Mike Hewitt,he left it to Dan Brundrett to

net sending the keeper the wrong way, 1-2. , 68

mins. This was just what Keele needed, a close

encounter seemed on, sadly the visitors in-

creased their lead within 5 mins, the ball was

delivered high into the Keele box, where Keele

Capt. Challinor got in a headed clearance only

to see it drop to an unmarked AHFC defender

Shaun Rhodes to force home from close range.

1-3, 75 mins. Keele were still in the game and

their recent form has taught the team to play to

the end. A superb move starting in midfield saw

the ball being passed out wide to Jnr R. he

raced forward beat his marker raced to the by-

line and cut the ball back for the onrushing

Mikey Hewitt to tuck the ball home from 6 yds, a

good well worked goal, 2-3, sadly Keele had left

it to late to mount any further meaningful at-

tacks the game finishing 2-3 to AHFC. This

AHFC will not drop many points for the remain-

der of this season, and will I feel press hard for

the eventual champions crown. Their attacking

edge just about made them worthy winners in a

tight game.

This was a valiant effort from a very tired Keele

squad,they have to put this result into some

perspective, last season they would have been

losing this type of game by a significant margin,

and now they are upset as they did not get a re-

sult. Few teams in the league will relish the

prospect of playing this resurgent Keele squad

at the moment. Keep at it train hard , "fight

easy!"

The pressure in this league is relentless as next

week Keele are away to Wolstanton Utd.

Keele MOM Junior Rodrigue.

29

On Wednesday 20th of match Keele were away

at Staffordshire University, a powerful club in

local football circles, who have this season

fallen from grace.

As is usual Keele fielded a varied line up, rotat-

ing the squad, keeping the whole group sharp

and competitive. With 3 squad players missing,

Sophie Edward, Becky Kugulogu and Kat

Smith, the squad remained strong, great credit

to the fringe squad members who keep every-

one on their toes.

For once Keele did not look to be out muscled

as SDFC fielded a young side, Keele quickly

got in to the flow that has seen the register 3

wins and a draw during the month of Feb. This

is the best run in their Premier League history to

date, with one game lost in Feb away to Man-

chester university.

Keele were very determined to win this game,

and showed the greater urgency in the early ex-

changes, neat passing all over the field saw

shot raining in from Sofi Liperis, Alex Bailess

and Lizzie white, few caused the keeper any

problems. Keele pressed forward but the final

pass was always to slow, or misguided. The

breakthrough came in fine style when Hannah

hammered the ball home, left footed to the

keepers left, a great finish. (1-0, 12 mins)

Keeles superior passing skills saw waves of at-

tacks flooding into the staff university half, with

nothing but the 1-0 to show at HT.

Keele used the halftime break to good advan-

tage, to talk through the non scoring issues, no

changes were made.

The HT talk clearly made an impression on

Keele as Alex, playing a great ball in to a

crowded box, the response being a superb 1-2,

and a keeper to beat, which he did in style for

his first 1st Prem Lge goal., (2-0, 47 mins)

On 55 mins a great switch of play saw Sofi

Liperis burning down the left flank, beating three

players to fire home from a narrow angle, a

quality finish for 3-0, on 55 mins.

On the hour Sofi liperis was again terrorizing

the staff university defenders when he was

brought down, Lizzie White, stepped up to slam

home his 17th Prem goal of the season, 4-0, 60

min.

With Keele playing some superb open football,

chances were created at will, Hewitt put the

ever dangerous Sofi Liperis free to cut in side

and fire home a great left footed cross shot, 5-0,

75 mins.

SDFC were now completely overrun and sec-

ond best to a very fit Keele side, a goal mouth

scramble from a corner saw Lizzie White poking

the ball home, for a deserved goal after several

assists, 6-0, 80 mins.

Keele final goal came from a superb passing

movement between most every member of the

team, Hannah Shufflebotham playing the ball

into right back Lucy Knight who made no mis-

take from close range, 7-0, 85 mins.

This score line has a familiar ring t it as in sea-

son 2010/11, Keele beat SDFC 8-1, spooky.

This was a good display by a rampant Keele

team, the score line would have been even

greater but for the poor first half finishing, and a

quality display from the young SDFC keeper.

Keele are no longer easily rolled over, and the

month of Feb has seen Keele creating chances,

as they have done all season, but more impor-

tantly they have scored 19, & 4 against.

Teams are there to beat if you do that with style

that is all that can be asked!

Bring on Kidsgrove Athletic FC!

MOM Lizzie White

31