Is it surprising that Female sports journalists are unaccepted and disrespected in the industry? Probably not, but what is shocking is the extremes some sports fans go to.
Female sports reporters are not taken seriously by some men who do not believe that a woman could possibly know anything about sports, criticizing everything the reporter has to say. Unfortunately, this is to be expected because sports are a male-dominated industry.
Above is a tweet from Michelle Bruton, sports editor and reporter at Ozy. Bruton’s tweet led to the discussion about how women cannot be experts in football or baseball because those are typically male-only. However, not all of the male reporters have played the sports they are reporting, but they are taken more seriously than their female counter-parts.
Even worse than not being taken seriously, women in this field are commonly sexually-objectified. The #MeToo movement is not just a viral phenomenon for these ladies, it is often their everyday reality.
During the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia there were multiple stories of female reporters being harassed. Julia Guimarães, a reporter with TV Globo and SporTV in Brazil, was speaking on camera in Yekaterinburg, Russia when a man came up and tried to plant a kiss on her cheek.
Julie DiCaro, Chicago sports broadcaster and columnist, as well as, Sarah Spain, espnW writer, radio host and SportsCenter reporter, sat down with a group of men that read aloud tweets the two women had received. The video titled #MoreThanMean was created by Just Not Sports, which is a podcast and website that focuses on sports personalities and peripheral stories in the sports industry. The online abuse exposed in the video was so much for the men reading that they were not able to look DiCaro and Spain in the eyes.
Female reporters are not all in the industry for feminist reasons, most of them are there because the have passion for sports, just like their male colleagues. It’s time to move past the notion that women need to be held to a higher standard than men.