In the Olympic Tradition: Sportscasters' Language and Female Athleticism
Weidman/Olympics
In the Olympic Tradition:
Sportscasters' Language and Female Athleticism
by
Lisa M. Weidman
Doctoral Candidate
S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse University
Submitted to the Mass Communication and Society Division
for the Leslie J. Moeller student paper award and
for presentation at the annual AEJMC convention in Baltimore, Maryland
August, 1998
Address: 225 Cambridge Street
Syracuse, NY 13210
Telephone: (315) 423-7902
Email: [log in to unmask]
Abstract
Citing hegemony theory, the author argues that sports media reinforce
patriarchal ideologies and dominant definitions of "femininity" and
"masculinity." Through a quantitative content analysis, comparing the way
announcers on U.S. broadcasts of the 1996 summer Olympics spoke of female and
male athletes, the author tests the hypothesis that sports announcers try to
make female athletes seem more feminine and therefore more appealing. The
hypotheses are not supported, indicating that media coverage of female athletes
may be changing.
In the Olympic Tradition:
Sportscasters' Language and Female Athleticism
INTRODUCTION
When Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympics Games in 1896, he
deliberately excluded women from the competition. He believed that it was
against the "laws of nature" for women to participate in sports, and he saw
women's sport as "the most unaesthetic sight human eyes could contemplate"
(quoted in Hargreaves, 1984, p. 17). In 1912 he wrote: "The Olympic Games must
be reserved for men. _ We must continue to try to achieve the following
definition: the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism with
internationalism as the base, loyalty as the means, art for its setting, and
female applause as its reward" (italics mine, quoted in Cohen, 1993, p. 169).
Despite de Coubertin's best efforts, however, women did compete in the
Olympics, and in the summer Olympics of 1996 they enjoyed the opportunity to
participate in 108 events. This is an indication of how far female athletes
have come in their struggle for rights, respect, and social acceptance.
However, the fact that there were 64 more events open to male competitors in the
1996 games hints at a sex-based discrimination that continues to exist in the
world of sport. My concern here is with the role that the sports media may play
in perpetuating the ideology that leads to discrimination against females in
athletics.
Using the theoretical approach of hegemony, I will argue that the realm of
sport is a site of gender inequity in which patriarchal notions of women's
inferiority are perpetuated and dominant definitions of "femininity" and
"masculinity" are reinforced, to the detriment of female athletes.
To investigate how, if at all, the sports media participate in this process, I
conducted a content analysis of NBC's U.S. broadcasts of the 1996 Olympic Games
with a particular focus on announcers' comments regarding male and female
competitors in a number of Olympic events. Announcers' language is important
because announcers direct our attention, provide us with background information,
tell the athletes' stories, and characterize what we see on the screen. While
doing all this, they also express American values and beliefs and perpetuate
them by speaking authoritatively to a very large audience (estimated by NBC to
be 200 million for the '96 summer games).
THEORY
Hegemony, as defined by Antonio Gramsci (1927/1971) and elaborated by Raymond
Williams (1980/1991), is the means by which ruling groups within a society
maintain their dominance. This is not accomplished by force but by a process of
leadership and negotiation that fosters the consent of the dominated through
shared ideology and culture. Dominant definitions of reality are taken as
"natural" or as common sense by the majority, though minority views and
oppositional stances do arise. The dominant forces resist these oppositional
views through "annihilation, accommodation, and appropriation" (Creedon, 1993,
p. 10), such that some of these views are squelched and others are absorbed into
the dominant culture, often in a watered-down form (Gitlin, 1980). Sport, as
Messner (1988) described it, "is a dynamic social space where dominant (class,
ethnic, etc.) ideologies are perpetuated as well as challenged and contested"
(p. 198). Hargreaves (1994) concurs: "Because sports are vastly popular, and can
be compelling and enjoyable, they are important vehicles for the transmission of
ideology" (p. 22).
Dominant ideologies in the U.S. include patriarchy, capitalism, consumerism,
competition, and rationalism (Messner, 1988). The dominant ideology of interest
in this paper is patriarchy, or the ideology of male supremacy. Many social
scientists have argued that sport perpetuates patriarchal ideology by making
men's power and privilege over women seem "natural" (Daddario, 1994; Bryson,
1987; Duncan & Hasbrook, 1988; Messner, 1988; Kane & Snyder, 1989; Birrell &
Cole, 1990; Duncan, 1990; Kane & Parks, 1992; Kane & Greendorfer, 1994).
One of the ways in which men's power and privilege are naturalized is by
linking "athleticism" with "masculinity" (Bryson, 1987; Sabo & Jansen, 1992).[1]
Dating back to the first Olympic games of ancient Greece in the 7th century
B.C., organized sports have played a "masculinity-validating" (Messner, 1988, p.
200) role in Western culture (Mandell, 1976). Today, we understand the term
"athletic" in much the same way as "masculine"Dstrong, aggressive, competitive,
powerful (Rohrbaugh, 1979; DiIorio, 1989; Roloff, M. E. & Solomon, 1989). Not
surprisingly, "traditional definitions of 'female' have been antithetical to
traditional definitions of 'athlete'" (Kane & Greendorfer, 1994, p. 32). As
Judith DiIorio (1989, p. 51) further explains:
There has been considerable research analyzing the definitions
and values associated with sports and athletics in this
cultureDresearch that clearly reveals the patriarchal ideologies
embedded therein. Hence, we know that the definitions and ideals
traditionally associated with athletics emphasize strength,
aggression, competition, and winning and are virtually synonymous
with masculinity but antonymous with femininity (Hart, 1971; Felshin,
1974; Oglesby, 1978).
These definitions both create and reinforce the hegemonic notions that "real
women" (i. e., women who look and act in accordance with hegemonic, or dominant,
expectations and definitions of women) are not athletic and are incapable of
being good athletes, that those women who are athletic are not "real women," and
that athletic pursuits are simply inappropriate for women (Hargreaves, 1994).
These conceptions have resulted in females being discouraged from participating
in sports and in discrimination against those females who do participate.
Duncan (1990) has argued that any emphasis on sexual difference in sports or in
the sports media serves to undermine and trivialize the efforts of female
athletes. Certainly, any emphasis on the feminine qualities of a female athlete
serves to "de-athleticize" her and therefore detract from her abilities and
accomplishments, due to the antonymous relationship between the concepts of
"athletic" and "feminine."
The Role of Sports Media in the Reproduction of Gender Inequities
In the framework of hegemony, the mass media are generally seen to reflect,
reproduce, and perpetuate dominant societal values, definitions, and beliefs (e.
g., see Tuchman, 1978 &1981; Messner, 1988; Creedon, 1994). Thus, the sports
media transmit the ideologies associated with sports, including the ideology of
male supremacy and all of the language that supports it (Williams & Rowe, 1985;
Wenner, 1989; Sabo & Jansen, 1992; Hargreaves, 1994). Halbert & Latimer (1994)
have outlined a number of ways in which the sports media have helped to
"perpetuate male dominance" (p. 299). These include:
(a) excluding women completely from coverage, (b) having very
little coverage of female athletes (which distorts the public's image
of the percentage of women interested and participating in sports),
(c) covering only those events such as figure skating and tennis that
reinforce stereotypical feminine images of female athletes, and (d)
minimizing women's athletic achievements through sports commentaries"
(p. 299).
This list is corroborated by many of the research findings in this area.
Review of Research Findings
A number of researchers studying the treatment of female athletes by the sports
media have argued, based on their findings, that "women athletes (when they were
reported on at all) were likely to be overtly trivialized, infantilized, and
sexualized" (Messner, Duncan & Jensen, 1993, p. 123; also Felshin, 1974;
Boutilier and San Giovanni, 1983; Graydon, 1983; Bryson, 1987; G. Dyer, 1987;
Duncan, 1990; Klein, 1988).
The underrepresentation of women's sports in the sports media has been well
documentedDin U.S. sports pages (Theberge & Cronk, 1986), in BBC Television and
British newspaper coverage of major international athletic championships
(Alexander, 1994a, 1994b), in the sports pages of West German newspapers (Klein,
1988), in Sports Illustrated feature articles (Lumpkin & Williams, 1991), in
sports magazines targeted to children (Rintala & Birrell, 1984; Duncan &
Sayaovong, 1990); and even in the official newsletter of the National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) (Shifflett & Revelle, 1994).
Efforts by the media to trivialize women's sports have been documented, as
well. In an analysis of 3,000 sports articles from four West German papers,
sampled from the years 1979, 1985, and 1987, Klein (1988) found that "the press
functioned as a normalizing agent in the discourse of sport, which, amongst
other things, legitimises the marginal position of women in sport by invoking
the apparently natural differences between the sexes" (p. 139). Mechanisms of
this process include: exclusion of women from sports reports, "trivializing
women's sports, making them into 'non-sport,' or use of irony" (p. 139).
Duncan and Hasbrook (1988) compared the live television broadcasts (narratives
and visuals) of women's and men's competitions in "sports that have
traditionally been considered men's sports" (p. 4), including the final games of
the men's and women's 1986 NCAA basketball championship tournaments, a 1985 pro
surfing championship, and the 1986 New York City Marathon.
The researchers found that "each television broadcast included fundamentally
contradictory depictions of female athletes" (Duncan & Hasbrook, 1988, p. 19).
In the narrative of the women's basketball game they found an emphasis on
individual identity, effort and success, rather than on team identity, effort
and success. They also found an emphasis on the aesthetic appeal of players'
movements, while physical skills were not mentioned, and discussions of strategy
and technical aspects of the game were minimal, quite unlike the narrative
accompanying the men's game.
In the surfing and marathon broadcasts, the researchers found incongruities
between the narrative and visual depictions of the female competitors, such that
one element often undermined the positive message offered in the other. They
did not find such incongruities in the depictions of male competitors.
Messner, Duncan and Jensen (1993) reported similar findings in their study of
the language used by television broadcasters to call three men's and three
women's games in the 1989 NCAA basketball championship tournaments, as well as
several matches from the 1989 U.S. Open tennis tournament. While the researchers
found "less overtly sexist commentary than has been observed in past research"
(p. 121), they noted several ways in which women athletes and their games were
trivialized. The basketball commentary was marked by asymmetrical "gender
marking" (p. 121), meaning that women's gender was referenced 77 times in the
three games (e.g., "the women's Final Four"), while men's gender was never
referenced in their three games. The commentary was further marked by
ambivalence toward the female players, evident in such phrases as "big girl" and
"her little jump hook" (p. 129), which combine a legitimate aspect of the sport
with a demeaning noun or adjective, often reducing the player to a prepubescent
state.
In the broadcasts of tennis matches, Messner, Duncan and Jensen (1993)
discovered a "hierarchy of naming" (p. 121); in six matches each, women tennis
players were referred to by their first name far more often than men (304 vs.
44), they were referred to by their last name far less often than men (166 vs.
395), and they were referred to by their full name somewhat less often than men
(107 vs. 127). Also in tennis, the researchers found that spectacular plays made
by women tended to be attributed to luck, implying a lack of athleticism, while
those made by men were attributed to will.
In the commentary of both basketball and tennis the researchers found that
two formulas for success appeared to exist, one for men, the
other for women. Men appeared to succeed through a combination of
talent, instinct, intelligence, size, strength, quickness, hard work,
and risk-taking. Women also appeared to succeed through talent,
enterprise, hard work, and intelligence. But commonly cited along
with these attributes were emotion, luck, togetherness, and family.
(p. 130)
In other words, their feminine characteristics (being emotional, being
vulnerable to luck, being cooperative, and being relational and dependent on
others) were emphasized by the announcers more than athletic characteristics,
such as size, strength, speed, and instinct.
In her rhetorical analysis of U.S. television coverage of the 1992 Winter
Olympics, Daddario (1994) identified several ways in which the language of CBS
announcers and commentators trivialized and infantilized female athletes. Sexist
descriptors were used to characterize women engaged in more "feminine" sports,
such as figure skating. Apologies were made for men's errant behavior and poor
performances much more than for women's. Adult female athletes were often
constructed "according to an adolescent ideal" (p. 275) or reduced to a
childlike state by framing them as "America's little sister," in the case of
Bonnie Blair (p. 282), or as their mothers' daughters rather than adult
competitors. Similarly, Daddario found that female athletes were often depicted
as driven by human connection (especially to parents and siblings) rather than
by sports competition, unlike their male counterparts. Thus, announcers were
again found to emphasize feminine characteristics when speaking of female
athletes.
Finally, Halbert and Latimer (1994) applied the research model used by Messner,
Duncan and Jensen (1993) and examined the language used by television announcers
in a 1992 exhibition tennis match between Martina Navratilova and Jimmy Conners
("The Battle of the Champions"). They, too, found asymmetrical gender marking
and a gendered hierarchy of naming in the narrative accompanying the tennis
match. Navratilova's gender was called to attention 11 times, while Connors' was
only mentioned twice. Connors' last name was used five times more often than
Navratilova's last name; his first name was used half as often as hers; and his
full name was used twice as often as hers. Navratilova was called a lady three
times and a girl four times. In contrast, Connors was called a gentleman once
and was never referred to as a boy.
Halbert and Latimer (1994) also assessed praise-to-criticism ratios and found
that Connors was praised 30 times and criticized five times, while Navratilova
was only praised 7 times but was criticized 12 times. In addition, the
researchers reported that character portraits were drawn of Navratilova as
vulnerable, relational, and dependent on her coach (again, feminine
characteristics) and of Connors as confident and independent. They noted further
that the commentary and interviews shown before the match indicated that
Navratilova was obviously the inferior competitor, though she was the top-ranked
woman at the time and had never competed against Connors, thus reinforcing the
hegemonic notion that all women are inferior to all men in the athletic arena.
Theoretical Hypotheses
Though the studies described above did not set out to find ways in which sports
announcers characterized female athletes as "feminine," many of them found just
that. The present study focuses specifically on this means of trivializing the
efforts of female athletes. Our shared understandings of the terms "masculine,"
"feminine," and "athletic," and the long-standing dominance of men in sport (in
terms of participation, performance, administration, and media coverage) have
worked together to perpetuate the hegemonic notion that athletic competition is
inappropriate for women and girls. Thus, our society has trouble accepting
women's foray into sport. We struggle with the contradictory nature of the term
"female athlete." We find women who are strong, aggressive, and competitive to
be unappealingDunless they also have some readily discernible feminine
characteristics, such as long hair, painted fingernails, a weakness of some
sort, or a tendency to cry on the medal stand, which may compensate for the
women's athletic prowess. Many people even make assumptions about female
athletes' sexualityDspecifically, that they are lesbiansDsimply because they
look and behave like athletes.
During the Olympics, when national pride is at stake, we (audience and
broadcasters alike) feel a need or a desire to embrace our nation's athletes, to
root for our team, whether they be men or women. American broadcasters who have
covered the Olympics in recent years have found a way to help us embrace not
only our own countrywomen, but also the best female athletes from other
countries. One might call it linguistic compensation: they make assessments and
observations that soften the athletic qualities of female athletes and highlight
any feminine qualities that the announcers perceive in these women and girls.
They do this through spontaneous discussion about the competitors and through
pre-packaged personality profiles, both of which shape the audience's
understanding of the athletes and, potentially, make them more appealing. A
prime example of this is the characterization of Bonnie Blair as "America's
little sister" (at 32 years of age) by CBS broadcasters during the 1992 Winter
Olympics, as noted in the study by Daddario (1994).
This softening of the athletic image and heightening of the feminine image
makes female athletes seem more like "real women" (i. e., women who exhibit
hegemonic femininity), which makes them more likable because they come closer to
fulfilling our hegemonic expectations with regard to gender. In summary, I
propose that, in an effort to compensate for female athletes' athleticism,
broadcast announcers draw attention to these athletes' femininity by using
descriptive language that corresponds with our shared ideas of hegemonic
femininity. In some cases announcers may make such comments to the exclusion of
comments that acknowledge the athlete's athletic prowess. In extreme cases, they
may not treat her like an athlete at all, but as the main character in a fairy
tale.
In addition to the reasoning provided above, support for this proposition can
be found in the literature. For example, in their review of coverage of women's
1984 Olympic events in Australian newspapers, Williams, Lawrence & Rowe (1985)
cite newspaper sports reports that demonstrate "the desire by the journalists to
show that despite their athleticism, women [competitors] still manage to remain
'women'" (p. 642). The women who were admired in the articles for crying as they
received awards or for wearing lots of jewelry "were emotional and/or attractive
in a 'feminine' way. The description of women was framed by considerations not
principally of their status as athletes, but by culturally prescribed gender
characteristics" (p. 642).
Thus, in the present study I expected to find that female athletes at the
Olympics were often described by broadcasters in language that pointed out the
"feminine" characteristics they possessed, including those that are not valued
in athletics, and to find that their athleticism was downplayed by announcers,
through both criticism (e. g., she is not strong or not fast) or through silence
(not describing female athletes as athletic, strong, fast, etc.).
Because our shared definitions of "masculine" and "athletic" are nearly
synonymous, announcers' comments about men can be used as a benchmark of sorts.
By comparing the way sports announcers speak of women to the way they speak of
men, we can learn whether women have achieved the level of social acceptance as
athletes that men have enjoyed for over a hundred years. If female athletes have
achieved this level of acceptance, it should be apparent in the way that
announcers speak of them; the announcers should point out feminine and athletic
characteristics about as often as they do when they announce men's events. My
belief is that, despite the great strides that women athletes have made in their
struggle for acceptance, they have not yet reached parity with male athletes.
This belief is reflected in the hypotheses below.
Research Hypotheses
In order to test the overall hypothesis that sports announcers try to make
female athletes seem more feminine through their comments, I planned several
specific comparisons. The first of these is:
H1) In broadcasts of comparable sporting events in the 1996
Olympics, NBC broadcasters describe the personal appearance of female
athletes more often than they describe the personal appearance of
male athletes.
Personal appearance is theoretically defined as all of the visible attributes
of an athlete except those which are relevant to the athlete's ability to excel
in his or her sport. In other words, personal appearance includes the
affectations people make in order to be more attractive, to be stylish, or to
make some sort of a statement. Personal appearance includes hairstyle, make-up,
fingernail polish, jewelry, tattoos, clothing, other adornments, possessions,
and mannerismsDunless the element serves an athletic purpose in the athlete's
quest for an Olympic medal, such as a shaved head for a swimmer.
As I argued above, Americans seem to be better able to embrace female athletes
if there is some readily discernible femininity about them; announcers try to
accommodate this conditional acceptance by drawing attention to the feminine
characteristics of female athletes. One of the easiest ways for announcers to do
this is by commenting on the athletes' personal appearance because our culture
so strongly equates female beauty with femininity, as Margaret Carlisle Duncan
(1990) explains:
In contemporary American culture, the ideology of patriarchy
proclaims the feminine ideal to be cosmetic perfection or glamour, a
quality that builds on sexual difference. _The features of a woman's
face, her body, her clothing, makeup, fingernail polish, adornments,
and hairdo come together to proclaim her sexual difference and
therefore her femininity. In contrast, our definitions of masculinity
are not so intimately connected to physical appearance. We are much
more likely to evaluate a man on the basis of his actions and
accomplishments (p. 25).
Duncan's implication is that women are more likely to be evaluated on the basis
of their beauty and glamour, rather than their actions and accomplishments. This
provides another reason why announcers would more frequently comment on the
personal appearance of female athletes; they are evaluating female athletes on
this basis as well as on their athletic prowess, or they may be offering up
information on the women's appearance so that viewers can make their own
evaluations. Further support for this hypothesis comes from Jan Graydon (1983),
who observed that "reports of women's success can in many instances appear to be
superficially positive. The woman is praised for her achievement, her event is
accurately described and her skills described. But somewhere in the
reportageDusually in the beginning if it is a press reportDremarks are made
about the woman's physical desirability" (p. 8). Sabo & Jansen (1992) also
observed that media "coverage [of women's sports] is often framed within
stereotypes that pertain more to appearance and attractiveness (from the
perspective of the male gaze) than to athletic skill" (p. 176).
Hypothesis 2 pertains to the number of athletic descriptors announcers use
regarding male and female athletes.
H2) In broadcasts of comparable sporting events in the 1996
Olympics, NBC broadcasters will describe and discuss the athletic
characteristics and performance of female athletes less often than
they will describe and discuss the athletic characteristics and
performance of male athletes.
Here, "athletic characteristics and performance" is theoretically defined as
all of the physical and mental qualities that we associate with and value in
athleticism. Included among these are physical and mental strength, power,
swiftness, agility, skill, fitness, endurance, control over one's body and mind,
determination, mental and physical toughness, competitiveness, bravery,
aggressiveness, strategic skill, a strong drive to achieve, and the ability to
effect one's purpose or get the job done.
In the course of any given Olympic event, announcers have a limited amount of
time to discuss individual athletes. For this study, men's and women's separate
events in the same sports were compared, so announcers of the men's and women's
events had just about the same amount of time to comment on the competitors. If
Hypothesis 1 is true and the announcers took more time to comment on the
personal appearance of competitors during the women's events, they would have
had less time to comment on the women's athletic characteristics and
performances. Such silence or minimal discussion of the athletic characteristics
of female athletes would result in a "softening" of their athleticism.
Furthermore, given our collective cognitive dissonance over women in athletics,
we might expect announcers to more readily describe a male hurdler's powerful
legs or a male tennis player's aggressive serve than to mention these
characteristics in a female athlete. There is no conflict involved in using
these descriptors with regard to male athletes; in fact, it seems "natural" to
do so. In our hegemonic view, "real men" (i. e., men who exhibit hegemonic
masculinity) should be powerful and aggressive, while women, once again, should
not.
While Hypothesis 2 pertains to the quantity of comments about competitors'
athleticism, Hypothesis 3 pertains to the quality of those comments. That is,
Hypothesis 3 is concerned with how announcers evaluate the athleticism and
performance of Olympic competitors.
H3) In broadcasts of the 1996 Olympics, NBC broadcasters
describe women's athletic characteristics and performance as less
athletic than men's.
Hypothesis 3 predicts that television announcers' evaluations of Olympic
athletes' performances and athletic characteristics (such as strength, power,
fitness, competitiveness, determination, bravery, etc.) will vary depending on
the sex of the athlete. I call the dependent variable in this hypothesis
"attributed athleticism," and I define it theoretically as the extent to which
an athlete is credited with athletic characteristics (as defined above) by the
announcers of that athlete's event. The hypothesis assumes some variability in
announcers' comments, such that they may assert or imply that an athlete is very
athletic (very strong, very fast, etc.), very unathletic (very weak, very slow,
etc.) or somewhere in between.
As was argued earlier, one of the ways that announcers are able to emphasize
the femininity of female athletes is by softening their athleticism. In addition
to simply offering fewer comments about their athleticism, announcers may offer
more direct criticism of female athletes (she's weak, she's not aggressive
enough) or more subtle comments that make female athletes seem less capable than
their male counterparts or even unathletic ("She's trying to be brave" versus
"He's very brave"). These kinds of comments could be expected because hegemonic
notions of femininity include such descriptors as physically weak, vulnerable,
passive, powerless, cooperative, dependent, tender, gentle, and emotional
(DiIorio, 1989; Duncan, 1990). These characteristics, though considered
undesirable in athletes, are generally considered desirable (or at least
acceptable) in women and are thus more likely to be said of female athletes than
of male athletes.
METHOD
Source/Sampling Design
The method employed here was quantitative content analysis. Segments of NBC's
exclusive U.S. broadcasts of the 1996 Olympic Games, which were aired from July
19 through August 4, 1996, were viewed and analyzed. The focus of the analysis
was on the language used by commentators to describe and discuss competitors.
The recording unit was utterance (whole sentences and sentence fragments). Each
phrase spoken by an announcer that included a notation or a description of an
athlete's physical appearance (not relevant to athletic performance) or an
evaluative comment about an athlete's athletic characteristics or performance
was included in the study. The unit of analysis was athlete, as each comment
being analyzed was a description or an evaluation of a particular athlete. The
events included in the study were selected on the basis of several criteria.
First, the sport had to have male- and female-counterpart events. Therefore,
gymnastics events were not included in the study because the men's and women's
versions are very different, but the 400-meter hurdles were included because
both men and women run this event.
Another criterion was variety. By selecting a variety of events, many of which
had several competitors involved in the action simultaneously, I hoped to draw a
large sample of athletes. Variety was also important for capturing variability
in announcing styles and in the language and history associated with different
sports. Thus, track events were included because they are among the oldest
Olympic sports and because women are well established in these events
(Hargreaves, 1996); beach volleyball was included because it is a new event in
the Olympics. Originally, the discus and javelin events were to be included
because they require great strength and power and might be considered
"masculine" sports[2]; to balance this, segments of the tennis competition were
included because tennis has traditionally been viewed as a
"feminine-appropriate" sport (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 210). Segments of the
semifinal and final basketball games were included because this is such a
high-profile sport in the U.S. (judging by the amount of pre-Games press
attention the two U.S. teams received), and segments of the mountain bike races
were included because mountain-biking is a relatively low-profile sport, even in
the U.S., where it was invented.
The final criterion for inclusion was availability via NBC broadcasts; only
events which were televised could be included in the study. Furthermore, if only
one version of an Olympic eventDfor example, the men's and not the women'sDwas
televised, that event was excluded from the study. Likewise, if the men's and
women's events were not comparable (e. g., if one was aired live in its entirety
and the other was shown as edited highlights), both events were dropped from the
study. This criterion eliminated the 5,000-meter foot-race, the discus, the
javelin, the shot-put, and single-sculls rowing.
Ultimately, forty events (from qualifying rounds through finals), representing
ten sports, were included in the study. The sports were: the 100-meter dash, the
400-meter foot-race, the 4x400-meter relay, the 400-meter hurdles, beach
volleyball, tennis, basketball, mountain biking, 10-meter platform diving, and
pairs rowing (without coxswain). From these 40 events came a sample of 209
athletes, of which 109 were women and 100 were men.
The content to be analyzed included any discussion among the announcers
immediately preceding and following the event as well as the event itself,
unless the event lasted more than thirty minutes (such as beach volleyball,
tennis, basketball, and mountain biking), in which case approximately fifteen
minutes of the event were coded. For events in which the women's and men's
versions were broadcast in unequal lengths, the shorter of the two provided a
time limit for the longer version, which was then coded for the same number of
minutes as the shorter version. This resulted in approximately 150 minutes of
men's and 150 minutes of women's events being included in the study.
Operational Definitions
The independent variable for all of the hypotheses was sex of athlete, which
was operationally defined as male or female.
The dependent variable for Hypothesis 1 was "comments about an athlete's
personal appearance." This variable does not include comments about physical
attributes that are relevant to athleticism, such as height for basketball
players, shaved heads for swimmers, or muscle size for competitors in just about
any sport because these characteristics may determine an athlete's ability to
excel in his or her sport. "Personal appearance" refers specifically to
attributes which do not contribute to (or detract from, if not present) an
athlete's ability to perform well. Thus, "personal appearance" comments are
defined as any remarks about an athlete's hairstyle, make-up, fingernail polish,
jewelry, body piercings, tattoos, clothing, other adornments, possessions, and
mannerisms.
In order to link this hypothesis directly to the proposition that announcers
emphasize the femininity of female athletes in a way that they do not do with
male athletes, only gender-appropriate appearance comments were included in the
study. For example, a comment about the shaved head of a female runner would not
be included because a shaved head is seen in this culture as inappropriate for
women and is thus unfeminine. A comment of this sort is not relevant to the
hypothesis because it would not serve to make a female athlete seem more
feminine. Likewise, a comment about the painted blue fingernails of a male
athlete would not be included because painted fingernails are considered
inappropriate for men and are thus not masculine. The hypothesis pertains only
to the comments that make athletes seem more appealing (more feminine for
females and more masculine for males).
Coding for Hypothesis 1 consisted of recording in count form every utterance in
which an announcer noted, described, or otherwise commented upon the personal
appearance of an individual athlete, as defined above. A separate tally was kept
for each athlete.
The dependent variable for Hypothesis 2 was "comments about athletic
characteristics and performance." This variable includes comments regarding all
of the physical and mental characteristics that we associate with and value in
athleticism, such as physical and mental strength, power, speed, agility, skill,
fitness, endurance, control over one's body and mind, determination, mental and
physical toughness, competitiveness, bravery, aggressiveness, a strong drive to
achieve, and the ability to effect one's purpose or achieve one's goals. As
before, coding consisted of recording in count form every utterance in which an
announcer noted, described, or commented upon an athletic characteristic or
evaluated the performance of an individual athlete. Again, a separate tally was
kept for each athlete.
The dependent variable for Hypothesis 3, which predicts that announcers will
describe women's athletic characteristics as less athletic than men's, is
"attributed athleticism." This refers to evaluative words or phrases that
describe the physical and mental characteristics that are generally valued in an
athlete (as described above). Athletes display these characteristics to varying
degrees, and when announcers assess the athletes competing in a game or a race,
they credit the athletes with having these characteristics to varying degrees.
Thus, the variable "attributed athleticism" was operationalized through the use
of a semantic differential scale, ranging from not athletic at all (coded as a
1) to highly athletic (coded as a 5). This scale was used to score announcers'
comments about all of the athletic characteristics described above, e. g.,
strength (ranging from very weak to very strong), fitness (from very unfit to
very fit), skill (from very unskilled to highly skilled), self-control (from out
of control to very controlled), ability to effect or achieve one's goals (from
incapable to very capable), endurance (from not having endurance at all to
having great endurance), competitiveness (from very cooperative or uncompetitive
to very competitive), and so forth. Every comment that involved an evaluation of
an athlete's athleticism was given a score indicating how positive or negative
the comment was. Again, a separate tally was kept for each athlete.
Coding and Intercoder Reliability
Formal coding duties were performed by the researcher. However, prior to formal
coding, the researcher and another coder independently viewed[3] and coded a
subsample of the taped material in order to assess the reliability of the
instrument. The subsample consisted of broadcast segments from women's and men's
basketball, preliminary rounds of beach volleyball, and the women's 200-meter
freestyle swimming competition. Each coder was provided with written
instructions and a coding sheet to fill out for each athlete discussed by the
announcers (see attachments). As indicated above, coders kept a count of
personal appearance comments and attributed athleticism comments. Coding
instructions were further clarified and the coding sheet revised after a
training and practice session.
According to Holsti (1969, p. 142), "defining an acceptable level of
reliability is one of the many problems in content analysis for which there is
no single solution." Shoemaker (P. J. Shoemaker, personal communication,
January, 1996) recommends that, as a general rule, content analysts consider a
reliability score of .8 or above to be "very good." In light of this, I
determined that acceptable reliability scores would be .8 or above for the
personal appearance and athletic characteristics cooments and a score of .7 or
above for the attributed athleticism score (because this requires subjective
judgment and has a higher probability of chance agreement due to the limited
size of the scale). Holsti's coefficient of reliability (1969, p. 140) was used
to test coder agreement, and the results were as follows:
Hypothesis 1:
Number of personal appearance comments: = 1.0
Hypothesis 2:
Number of athletic characteristics comments: = .89
Hypothesis 3:
Scores of attributed athleticism comments: = .80
These reliability results were deemed to be sufficiently strong to warrant
proceeding with the study without further training of the coders or adjustment
to the coding instructions and method.
Statistics Used in the Analysis
Though the sampling method used in this study was by no means strict random, an
assumption of randomness was made on the grounds that sampling bias was actively
avoidedDthrough the selection of a variety of sports, which were spread out
across many different days (and day-parts) of NBC's broadcasts, and through the
inclusion of all levels of events (qualifying rounds, quarterfinals, semifinals,
and finals). Furthermore, any unintended sampling bias was likely to be constant
across the men's and women's versions of the events because the events were
matched as closely as possible and because the team of broadcasters at each
Olympic venue announced both the men's and the women's events.
Based on this assumption of randomness, then, statistical tests of the
hypotheses were planned. The independent variable in all three hypotheses (sex
of athlete) can only be measured at the nominal level, which limits the
statistics that can be used in the study. However, the dependent variables in
Hypotheses 1 and 2 can be measured at the ratio level, as they are numerical
counts with a true zero point and equal intervals between values. And the
dependent variable in Hypothesis 3 can be measured at the interval level, as the
scales used in coding them are rank-ordered and can be assumed to have equal
distances between adjacent points on the scale. Thus, each of the hypotheses
could beDand wereDtested with independent samples t-tests in order to compare
the means (average number of personal appearance comments, average number of
athleticism comments, and average attributed athleticism scores) associated with
male and female athletes.
RESULTS
The hypotheses being tested here asserted that Olympic-broadcast announcers
comment on the personal appearance of female athletes more often, on average,
than they comment on the personal appearance of male athletes and that
announcers comment on the athletic characteristics and performance of female
athletes less often, on average, than they comment on the athleticism of male
athletes. The third hypothesis further stated that when announcers do speak of
the athletic characteristics and performances of female athletes, they do so
less positively, on average, than when speaking of male athletes, thereby
attributing less athletic prowess to female athletes than to male athletes. It
was argued that these anticipated differences in coverage of the men's and
women's Olympic events result from the desire of broadcasters to make female
athletes seem more feminine and thus more appealing to audience members.
Prior to hypothesis testing, descriptive statistics were run and evaluated.
These statistics revealed a great deal of variability in the data associated
with "personal appearance comments" and "athleticism comments," as indicated by
the large standard deviations of these dependent variables (Table 1). In
addition, these distributions did not appear normal; both were positively
skewed, the distribution of "appearance comments" quite severely so, due to the
fact that 187 athletes out of 209 had no comments made about their personal
appearance. The large spread associated with the counts of athleticism comments
was at least partially caused by the fact that the athleticism of many athletes
was only commented upon once or twice, whereas those favored to win the event
(or otherwise deemed of greater interest by the broadcasters) were commented
upon many times. The "attributed athleticism" scores showed less variability,
due in part to the limited range of possible scores (one to five, based on the
average of all the scores for each athlete), and the distribution of data
appeared normal, except for a spike (of 42 cases) at value 4.
After a review of these descriptive statistics, the hypothesis tests were
conducted. The independent-samples t-tests revealed no significant differences
between the comments made about female Olympians and male Olympians (Table 2).
Hypothesis 1 predicted that in broadcasts of comparable sporting events in the
1996 Olympics, NBC broadcasters would describe the personal appearance of female
athletes more often than they would describe the personal appearance of male
athletes. This was not supported. In fact, the mean for personal appearance
comments made about female athletes was slightly lower than the mean for
comments made about male athletes, indicating that, on average, announcers
commented on the personal appearance of male athletes somewhat more often than
they commented on the personal appearance of female athletes. However, it should
be noted that the means for both groups were well below one comment per athlete
and that this result did not approach statistical significance (Table 2).
Hypothesis 2 predicted that in broadcasts of comparable sporting events in the
1996 Olympics, NBC broadcasters would describe and discuss the athletic
characteristics and performance of female athletes less often than they would
describe and discuss the athletic characteristics and performance of male
athletes. Again, the means ran contrary to the direction predicted. Announcers
actually commented on the athleticism of female athletes more often, on average,
than they commented on the athleticism of male athletes, though the difference
was not significant at the 95% confidence level (Table 2).
Hypothesis 3 predicted that NBC broadcasters would describe women's athletic
characteristics and performance as less athletic than men's. Once again, though
the difference was not statistically significant, the data ran contrary to the
hypotheses, such that female athletes received higher athleticism scores, on
average, than male athletes. Thus, I cannot reject the null hypothesis (of no
difference) for any of the three statistical tests.
In summary, none of the hypotheses was supported by the t-tests, leaving us no
statistical evidence that announcers of the Olympics broadcasts on NBC in the
summer of 1996 attempted to make female athletes seem more feminine and
appealing through the verbal techniques analyzed in this study.
DISCUSSION
Summary of Problem, Theory, Method, and Results
This study attempted to document quantitatively several ways in which sports
announcers might perpetuate hegemonic notions of women's inferiority to men and
dominant definitions of "femininity." Hegemony theory was introduced as a way of
explaining how the dominant ideologies of a culture can influence media content
and how such media content can then perpetuate or reinforce the values, beliefs,
definitions, and understandings associated with those ideologies. I argued that
hegemonic understandings of appropriate behavior and characteristics for women
in the United States preclude athleticism, which has traditionally been
associated with the behavior and characteristics that are considered appropriate
for men. I further argued that one way in which the sports media have come to
deal with the incongruity of female athletes is by characterizing them as
feminine. The hypotheses predicted that announcers of television sports
broadcasts would say certain things to make female athletes seem more feminine
and thus more appealing to the television audience. To test these hypotheses, a
quantitative content analysis was conducted on selected segments of the 1996
summer Olympics broadcasts on the American television network NBC. The
hypotheses were not supported, as comparisons of the number and nature of
comments made about the personal appearance and athleticism of male and female
athletes revealed no significant differences in the way announcers spoke of
female athletes as opposed to male athletes.
Contributions of the Study
Results of this kind are sometimes disheartening to researchers, as null
findings do not support or strengthen the theory on which the research was
based. That is the case here, but this study has a silver lining. Null findings
in this case may indicate a change in the way sports announcers speak about
female athletes. Perhaps today's announcers do not trivialize female athletes in
the ways that so many have in the past, as documented by the many studies of
sports media cited earlier in this paper. Though the null findings in this study
may be attributable to the sampling method or to the operationalization of the
concepts under investigation (both of which are, admittedly, flawed), I have
reason to believe that we are, in fact, beginning to see a shift in the way
women's sports and female athletes are treated by the sports media.
This is the second study of 1996 U.S. television broadcasts of men's and
women's sports in which I have found no statistically significant differences in
the way that sports announcers talk about male and female athletes and men's and
women's sports. In the prior study (Weidman, in press), I utilized many of the
concepts and operationalizations established in earlier studies to analyze
broadcasts of the men's and women's NCAA championship tournaments, yet unlike
the researchers who came before me, I found very limited evidence of
subordination of the women's games. Recent advances in the popularity of women's
and girls' sportsDamong participants, live audiences, and media audiencesDare
further indications of the increasing acceptability of female athleticism and
improved status for women's sports. This improved status in the minds of
participants and fans may be part of a hegemonic shift that could be reflected
in sports media content, such as the broadcasts analyzed in this study and the
basketball study.
Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research
The sampling method used in this study did not begin with random selection of
athletes from the population who participated in the Olympic Games. This would
have required previewing the entire set of Olympic broadcasts (comprising 20
six-hour tapes) and cataloging every athlete who was shown in competition during
those broadcasts. Needless to say, that would have been impractical, given the
scope of this study. Nonetheless, the sampling method used weakens the
reliability of the statistical tests and, some would argue, throws their very
use into question.
Another limitation of this study, as mentioned above, was the method of
operationalizing the concept of linguistic compensation for female athleticism,
or making female athletes seem more feminine. The indicators chosen to measure
this concept (the number of personal appearance and athleticism comments and the
valence of the latter) may not have been adequate to capture all of the possible
ways that announcers could soften the athleticism of female athletes. Additional
measures could haveDand in future research, shouldDbe employed. Such measures as
feminine descriptors (e.g., nurturing, caring, demure, relational) or images of
athletes' family members might have been more appropriate ways to assess whether
NBC broadcasters tried to make female Olympians seem more feminine.
Perhaps an examination of the personality profiles that NBC aired throughout
the Olympics broadcasts would have yielded more support for my conceptualization
of hegemony theory. These notoriously melodramatic vignettes were designed to
show aspects of the athletes that were not visible during competition,
presumably to make them more interesting and appealing to audience members
(especially female audience members). These pre-edited representations of
athletes, in which broadcasters had more of an opportunity to develop character
portraits, may contain more obvious attempts to feminize female athletes or to
perpetuate other hegemonic values regarding gender and athleticism.
I believe this issue warrants further investigation. First, we must address the
question of whether television broadcastersDin the United States, at
leastDreally have begun to treat female athletes with the same respect given to
male athletes. If broadcasters have begun to treat female athletes with more
respect, we should find out why and how this change has occurred. Longitudinal
studies would be useful for tracking the treatment of female athletes over many
years and in various media. Such studies could assess whether changes in media
coverage of women's and girls' sports are correlated with changes in the
dominant ideologies of the culture.
Table 1. Means and standard deviations for dependent variables.
Variables
Mean
Std. Deviation
N
Personal appearance commentsa
.17
.58
209
Athletic characteristics commentsb
10.81
9.54
209
Attributed athleticism scoresc
3.63
.69
209
aThe number of comments announcers made about the personal (non-athletic)
appearance of
each athlete.
bThe number of evaluative comments announcers made about the athletic
characteristics
and/or performance of each athlete.
cThe amount of athleticism attributed to the athletic characteristics and
performance of each athlete in comments made by announcers (calculated by giving
a score to each comment and averaging each athlete's scores).
Table 2. Independent t-tests for sex of athlete.
Sex of Athlete
Variables
Female
Mean
(& SD)
(N=109)
Male
Mean
(& SD)
(N=100)
t value
df
significance
Personal Appearance
.13
.51
.21
.64
-1.02
207
ns
Athletic Characteristicsb
11.97
11.30
9.55
7.00
1.88
207
ns
Attributed Athleticismc
3.66
.75
3.58
.62
1.74
206
ns
aThe number of comments announcers made about the personal (non-athletic)
appearance of
each athlete.
bThe number of comments announcers made about the athletic characteristics
and/or
performance of each athlete.
cThe amount of athleticism attributed to the athletic characteristics and/or
performance
of each athlete in comments made by announcers (calculated by giving a score
to each
comment and averaging each athlete's scores).
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Appendix A: CODE BOOK
1) coder
Researcher = 1
2nd Coder = 2
2) event
100m = 1
400m = 2
4x400 relay = 3
400 hurdles = 4
5,000m = 5
Discus = 6
Javelin = 7
Beach volleyball = 8
Tennis = 9
Basketball = 10
Mountain biking = 11
3) sex of athlete
Female = 1
Male = 2
4) race of athlete
White = 1
Person of color = 2
5) name of athlete
Please write the name of the athlete on this line. If you do not
learn the athlete's name, write in any distinguishing information that you
can.
6) personal appearance of this athlete
Must be a comment about an aspect of personal appearance that is irrelevant to
the person's athletic success and that is gender-appropriate (i.e., don't
include a comment about a woman's shaved head or a man's blue fingernails).
Comments may include any (but are not limited to) of the following words of
phrases:
pretty
beautiful
attractive/physically attractive
sexy/sexual
hot (when used to mean sexy)
visually/physically appealing
glamorous
description/mention of jewelry or other adornments, including body piercings
for women and tattoos for men.
description/mention of make-up
description/mention of fingernails or fingernail polish/decorations
description/mention of hairdo or hair style
description of clothing if related to athlete's physical appearance
other phrase that describes athlete as physically attractive
description/mention of athlete's mannerisms
description/mention of athlete's possessions if related to personal appearance
or style
7) athleticism comments
Must be an evaluative comment in that they give the audience and idea of whether
or not this person is a good athlete. Do not record pure descriptions of the
event, such as "Johnson is in first place," but do record comments such as
"Johnson is out quickly." Comments must be about a physical or mental
characteristic or action that we associate with and value in athleticism, such
as physical and mental strength, power, speed, agility, skill in the sport,
fitness, endurance, control over one's body and mind, determination, mental and
physical toughness, bravery, aggressiveness, a strong drive to achieve, and the
ability to effect one's purpose or achieve one's goals (i. e., to win). Comments
may include (but are not limited to) any of the following words of phrases:
athlete is able to (do what he or she is trying to do)
weak, not strong (physically)/strong
powerless, not powerful (physically)/powerful
slow, sluggish/fast, swift, quick
agile
unable to effect one's purpose, intention, or end; unable to get the job done
able to effect one's purpose, intention, or end; able to get the job done
has not won this event before/has won this event before
doesn't have endurance/has endurance
not muscular/muscular
emotionally weak/emotionally strong
lacking willpower/having willpower
vulnerable/invulnerable
passive/aggressive
not assertive/assertive
cooperative/competitive
dependent/independent
tender, gentle, soft-hearted/tough, tough as nails
emotional/not emotional, rational, calculating
any mention of athlete crying
scared/brave
has a strong motive to achieve
has a sense of control over oneself or one's environment
8) score
Assign a score to each comment about the athlete's athleticism. A score of 5
indicates that the announcer's comment implies an assessment of the athlete as
very athletic, a score of 4 implies an assessment of the athlete as athletic, a
score of 2 implies an assessment of the athlete as somewhat unathletic, and a
score of one indicates an assessment of the athlete as very unathletic. A score
of 3 implies an assessment of the athlete as neither particularly athletic nor
unathletic. If an adverb, such as "very" or "extremely," precedes the
descriptive adjective or phrase, the score should automatically be a 1 or a 5
(either very unathletic or very athletic). If the announcer says that the
athlete has won (or done very well in) this event before, give a score of 4. If
the announcer says the athlete has never competed in this event before, give a
score of 2. If the announcer says the athlete has lost (or done badly in) this
event before, give a score of 2.
Some examples of specific athletic characteristics follow:
Physical Strength
very weak weak neutral strong very strong
1 2 3 4 5
Power
quite powerless powerless neutral powerful very powerful
1 2 3 4 5
Fitness
very unfit unfit neutral fit very fit
1 2 3 4 5
Skill
very unskilled unskilled neutral skillful very skillful
1 2 3 4 5
Ability to achieve one's goals (competent, effective)
very ineffective xxx neutral xxx very effective
1 2 3 4 5
Endurance
no endurance little endur. neutral some endur. great endurance
1 2 3 4 5
Speed
very slow slow neutral fast very fast
1 2 3 4 5
Emotional Strength
very weak weak neutral strong very strong
1 2 3 4 5
Emotional Control
overcome w/emotion xxx neutral xxx very composed
1 2 3 4 5
Bravery
very cowardly xxx neutral xxx very brave
1 2 3 4 5
Competitiveness
very cooperative xxx neutral xxx very competitive
1 2 3 4 5
Aggressiveness
very passive xxx neutral xxx very aggressive
1 2 3 4 5
Determination/Willpower/Focus/Self-control
very apathetic xxx neutral xxx very determined
1 2 3 4 5
Independence
very dependent/ xxx neutral xxx very independent/
relational self-sufficient
1 2 3 4 5
9) total
The total number of evaluative comments made by announcers regarding the
athleticism (athletic characteristics and actions) of the athlete.
10) coach
The number of references to the athlete's coach or trainer.
11) family
The number of references to the athlete's family, a member of the athlete's
family (including parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins,
in-laws, and spouses), or the athlete's romantic partner (boyfriend or
girlfriend).
Appendix B: CODING INSTRUCTIONS
1) coder
Please write the code for your name on this line, using the CODE BOOK
for reference.
2) event
Please write the code for the event you are viewing on this line,
using the CODE BOOK for reference.
3) sex of athlete
Please write the code for the sex of the athlete you are coding on
this line, using the CODE BOOK for reference.
4) race of athlete
Please write the code for the race of the athlete you are coding on
this line, using the CODE BOOK for reference.
5) name of athlete
Please write the name of the athlete on this line. If you do not
learn the athlete's name, write in any distinguishing information that you
can.
6) personal appearance of this athlete
Please write down each comment (a sentence or a sentence fragment) in
which an announcer says something about this athlete that pertains to his
or her personal appearance. Only record comments about an athlete's
personal appearance that is irrelevant to the person's athletic success
and that is gender-appropriate (i.e., don't include a comment about a
woman's shaved head or a man's blue fingernails). At the end of the video
segment, count the number of comments and write the total number in the
lower right corner of the box. For a full explanation of this variable,
please see the CODE BOOK.
7) athleticism comments
Please write down each individual phrase, partial sentence or
complete sentence in which an announcer says something about this
athlete's physical or mental characteristics that are relevant to their
athletic success, including statements about the athlete's past
performance in this or another athletic event. Comments must be evaluative
in nature in that they give the audience and idea of whether or not this
athlete is good. Do not record pure descriptions of the event, such as
"Johnson is in first place," but do record comments such as "Johnson is
out quickly." For a full explanation of this variable, please see the CODE
BOOK.
8) scores
Please assign a score to each comment (phrase, partial sentence, or
complete sentence) about this athlete's characteristics that are relevant
to their athletic success. Use the sample scales in the CODE BOOK as a
guide, and write the score in the space provided to the right of each co
mment. Give a score of 1 for a comment that credits the athlete with very
low athleticism and a score of 5 for a comment that credits the athlete
with very high athleticism. Give a score of 3 for an evaluative comment
that implies the athlete is neither a good athlete nor a bad athlete. For
a full explanation of this variable, please refer to the CODE BOOK.
9) total
At the end of the video segment, count the number of comments about
the athlete's athletic characteristics and write the total in the space
provided (the last cell in the column).
10) coach
Put a tally mark in the space provided every time you hear an
announcer mention anything about the athlete's coach or trainer.
11) family
Put a tally mark in the space provided every time you hear an
announcer mention anything about the athlete's family, a member of the
athlete's family, or the athlete's romantic partner (boyfriend or
girlfriend).
Appendix C: CODING SHEET
1) coder ______ 2) event ______ 3) sex ______
4) race _____ 5) name of athlete _________________________
6) Personal Apprearance of this Athlete
Total:
7) Athleticism Comments
8) Scores
9) Total:
10) Coach: 11) Family:
[1] I share Margaret Carlisle Duncan's (1990) stance "that although 'male' and
'female' are biological terms signaling reproductive differences, 'masculine'
and 'feminine' correspond not to natural, universal differences but rather to
culturally and historically specific constructions of differences" (p. 25).
[2] The discus and javelin events had to be eliminated because neither the men's
nor the women's versions were televised.
[3] To avoid reliability problems caused by inconsistent starts and stops of the
tapes, the coders viewed them simultaneously. However, no discussion was allowed
during viewing of the tapes.
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