The fight for women to get equal opportunities and representation has been ongoing for centuries. Countless women have fought for their voices and stories to be heard and taken seriously. Although many things have improved in the past 100 years, one thing that consistently trails behind other issues is women's representation in the sports media.
Needham High School is a very sports-heavy school. The male, female, and co-ed teams have won a variety of state championships amongst many successful seasons. Despite this, the female teams and players are often represented in social media far less than their male counterparts.
I kept track of the number of times the female teams were posted in comparison to the Needham male teams on two Instagram accounts: The Needham High School Student Section and the Needham Rockets.
For some background, the Needham High School Student Section account (@nhs_studentsection) is student-run, while the Needham Rockets account (@needhamrockets), as stated in their bio, is, “The official Instagram account of Needham HS athletics.”
The Needham High School Student Section has a total of 206 posts since 2017 on their profile, along with 1.7K followers. Out of those 206 posts, only 20 of them include a female athlete or female sports team, which is only 9.7%. In other words, on one of the main accounts that showcases Needham HS sports, female sports are only represented less than 10% of the time.
So what's going on here? Are the female sports not being posted as much because they are just playing less, giving the Student Section account fewer opportunities to post them? The answer is no. When the Student Section was compared with the Needham Rockets account over a five week period, it became evident that that the Student Section account just wasn’t posting the girls' sports. From February 1st into the first week of March, the Student Section posted a male team or athlete a total of six times (four times as a story post and two times as a regular post), but only posted anything relating to a female team or athlete once. This particular post was only done by the story function of Instagram, which only stays up for 24 hours. On the other hand, from February 1st through the first week of March, the Needham Rockets Instagram account posted 29 times. Out of the 29 posts, 15 of them depicted a female athlete or team. There were plenty of opportunities for the Student Section to showcase the female athletes during the end of their winter seasons, but they instead chose to focus on only the male part of the student body.
I decided to ask some female students who participate in NHS sports if they have noticed any of these issues and how they feel about them. Annika Johnson, a sophomore who has played on several NHS sports teams, stated, “I noticed that on Instagram, boys, particularly in football, are getting way more attention.” Annika also noted how she’s seen a pattern in Needham that goes beyond just Instagram: “In Hometown Weekly [Needham newspaper] the boys' sports are almost always on the front and back. Their schedules are almost always first on the printed schedules. Additionally, a lot more of the sports money goes to them for better equipment than [to] the girls.”
Annika is not the only student that has noticed these disconnects. Another sophomore student who played on one of the female basketball teams stated, “The NHS Student Section posted every single one the boys’ games, home and away, but none of ours. When we had our first playoff we were playing at home right after the boys. Our captains messaged the people who run the NHS Student Section account to see if they could post us and they never replied.”
This student went on to say that on game day they saw a post for the boys that had a caption to the effect of “get hyped for boys’ game at 5!!! And the girls’ game is after that at 7!” But that was the only mention of the girls’ game, and the girls didn't get their own post or even picture.
Another student said, “One thing I have noticed is that on the little screen in the gym hallways that shows games and stuff, I don’t think I have ever seen a girls’ sports team, which is really weird.”
To sum up what these three have said, in addition to what I have noticed, it is clear that Needham doesn’t give the female sports the representation they deserve.
The Needham female athletes have had countless achievements, a great deal of spirit, and have put in lots of hard work and dedication. Their athleticism and determination deserves the same amount of representation as all the male teams at the high school. Even if the recognition is as small as a 24-hour post, it's important because it lets the athletes know that their school and town supports them.
Unfortunately, this is not just a local issue. Lack of representation is present throughout the rest of the country and even the rest of the world. This is especially prevalent in big media outlets, and researchers have taken notice of this issue. A study that inspired me to keep track of the number of times female sports were posted in Needham was a 2019 research analysis conducted by Sage Journals. In this analysis, the researchers looked at 1,587 Instagram images from big media accounts including ESPN, For Sports, NBC and CBS Sports. What they were able to conclude was that only a very small percentage of those posts depicted female athletes. Even more so, half the women that were depicted in the few posts weren't even featured on their field of play or in an athletic position, while 80% of the men in these posts were being shown in athletic positions on the field.
Furthermore, women are often sexualized when being depicted in sports media. The photo below shows the covers of three different ESPN magazines. All three people were successful athletes, but regardless, only the man is shown athletically. Even more so, the one on the left, Candace Parker, is shown pregnant. To make matters worse, the description next to her picture states, “How big can Candace Parker get?”, further demonstrating how this sports company is being stereotypical by focusing on a female's body before focusing on her accomplishments. One more sexist aspect to this image is that both women are wearing white. White often symbolizes purity, which is a traditional stereotype that is often tied to women. Of course this is not to say women can’t be pure , but the way this magazine depicts the women to highlight their bodies rather than their accomplishments is very revealing of ESPN's value of women.
Image courtesy of Universe Sports
There are an endless number of examples of women in sports being under-represented in the media. Although coverage of women’s sports and better representation have increased over the past few years, from 1989-2019, TV coverage of women’s sports only went up by 5%. As stated earlier, even when female athletes do get representation, they are often not even being showcased for their sport, but instead are being portrayed in sexist and stereotypical ways that are rather diminishing to their accomplishments athletically.
So what's the importance behind women being represented in sports? Well, to start off, women work just as hard as men in their sports, and they are just as dedicated. Women have had so many accomplishments, from small to world level, and they continue to do amazing things that deserve to be recognized. Additionally, representation amongst high level female athletes can inspire and motivate young girls to become more involved in their sports. Social media and online networks infiltrate our lives in so many ways. A young girl athlete seeing an older girl athlete being recognized for her achievements can be extremely encouraging.
Jennifer Rockwood, the head coach of the BYU women's soccer team amplifies why women should be represented by saying, “Because they’re unbelievable, unbelievable young women. Not just athletically on the field, which they’re playing their sport at the very highest level…We want to see our athletes that accomplish those things get the recognition they deserve. Any type of recognition that they get is… recognition for all of us.”
Just like what Rockwood said, any sort of recognition is monumental for so many women. It's monumental for women in all aspects of sports, from the players, to the coaches, to all the fans watching at home on their screens. Women have had countless incredible accomplishments in sports, and giving recognition to them highlights all the sacrifices made by so many for those accomplishments to exist.