27. Research; Sexism In Womens Sport

As I'm basing my video on sport and passion in sport, particularly women in sport and how they're represented I decided to research this, especially highlighting on women's football as this is a big factor in the media now.

Sexism In Sport

There has been a lot publicity recently on sexism in sport, particularly football due to the continued progression of the Women's league in the UK that kick started two years ago. The Women's Super League was set up to try and improve the publicity of women's football and was established to be a summer league to try and improve the attendance figures. So far, it's gone from strength to strength bringing more attendance then ever in particularly after the success of the women's team in the Olympics with record attendance of over 70 thousand people attending the Brazil vs. GB game at Wembley. However, despite this, there is still sexism in the sport.

Women's football is the third largest team sport across the board in the UK and the most popular. Although, it's still consistently compared to the mens game. People working in women's football fight a constant battle against this stereotype - just like the battle against the way women are sexually represented in music videos. Once a meme has become a trope, it takes a lot of people to break the taboo and this is definitely the case. The fact most of the women play for simply the love of the game is overlooked. 2% of mainstream sports coverage is dedicated to women's sport - this means the players have to use twitter as a main aspect to try and establish the game. Twitter is obviously a great way to get messages across quickly and main musical artists also use this as a way of connecting with the fans. Eight representatives wore their twitter names on their sleeves to try and create a link further.

However, the main idea that seems to be whats effecting this is the fact that playing, watching or even writing about football makes you 'less feminine', not only is this the opinion of many in football, it's overall like this in sport and physical activity all together. However, unlike football, in tennis, the male and female tennis players now receive equal prize money at Wimbledon, although, proving the point of sexism and showing an example of Laura Mulvey once more, the attractive players of the championship like Maria Sharapova get more media attention.

Women footballers are not afraid to voice their opinions on the subject, with various quotes from them;

Rachel Yankey, a player for Arsenal Ladies and England said, "To have a decent standard of living we have second jobs. That would never happen in men's football. But if we do something about it now, future generations will reap the benefits". With goalkeeper Rachel Brown commenting, "Football has always been seen as a men's game, but that's because it's had almost 140 years to build it's popularity; we've had 17. I'd like to be recognised walking down the street, but only because it would mean the sport had got somewhere and was getting the recognition it deserved. With finally Jill Scott, highlighting, "Change isn't going to happen overnight, but to make a difference we need regular coverage. We need to celebrate sporting achievement regardless of the gender".

I believe this is a perfect point to conclude on. She's correct when she says it needs to be regardless of the gender, sport shouldn't depend on this and the coverage should be equal. I want to create a video showing this and passion relating back to the song of being a 'fighter'. With my idea I want to show the passion women have in sport and show an on-going issue with women in sport and show that they are as hard-working and as passionate as men. I want to go against the stereotype and use my music video to go against the theory of Laura Mulvey but also go against stereotypes of women in sport and break the many taboos.