Token responses to gendered newsrooms

Abstract

Female sports journalists work as tokens in gendered organizations where masculinity is integral to hierarchical logic and newswork processes. Through in-depth interviews, this longitudinal study explores how women in the industry manage their gendered and professional identities and make career decisions. Our findings suggest that although participants framed their decisions to stay or to leave in idealized terms, their choices were also guided by cultural and structural impediments acknowledged but accepted as natural and immutable. The women noted negative gender-related experiences, but most minimized them and saw their gender as an advantage. They also described their struggles to balance their work and social lives, the latter of which they saw as a necessary sacrifice to become ideal workers. We discuss these issues and suggest that sports media will fail to reach gender parity until these barriers are addressed; until then, the revolving door will keep turning.

Women’s sports coverage remains largely marginalized

“…83 Of course, this study is not the first to identify gender inequities in sports media; other scholarship has also documented the gender imbalance and anecdotal evidence to this effect is plentiful. Yet, this study provides a new historical perspective; the comparative analysis of articles published during the past three decades demonstrates that despite the broader cultural shift towards greater gender equality that has occurred, 84 coverage of women's sports has not improved over 30 years and female sports reporters continue to be a marginalized or token group 85 lacking the institutional clout needed to challenge group norms, move beyond male dominated 86 or patriarchal 87 newsroom practices 88 or advocate for greater equality of coverage.…”

“Her Winning Personality”: Critical Discourse Analysis of Media Portrayals of Females in Sport

“…Cultural commentaries (Morris, 1992;Scott, 1988;Valentin, 1997) about the gender divide can then be extended to my examples. As per works by Bremner (2002), Bruce (2013;2015), Hardin & Whiteside (2009), and Yeates (1995), sport media creates a hierarchy of quality when consuming sports content based on the division of gender which prioritizes male athletes.…”

Analysis of the Management Positions Gender Structure in Sports Organizations in Slovakia

“…"A woman in the leadership of a sports organization is rather an exception" [5]. Building a career in a primarily male profession places certain barriers in front of them, which they subsequently have to face in their careers [2,[6][7][8][9][10][11].…”