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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: Gender Bias in Televised Sports By Margaret Carlisle Duncan When CBS and ESPN covered the 1989 college basketball championships, commentators and graphics referred to the men's events as "The Final Four" and "The NCAA National Championship Game," while viewers were constantly reminded that they were watching the "Women's Final Four" and the "NCAA Women's National Championship Game." This presentation of women's games as derivative of a male standard signaled a consistent presentation of female athletics as inferior, according to a study of sports journalism sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles that examined these basketball and tennis events. (The study was conducted by Margaret Carlisle Duncan, Michael Messner, Linda Williams and Kerry Jensen.) The way commentators referred to men and women athletes contrasted dramatically. In the tennis and basketball games studied, women were referred to as "girls," as well as "young ladies" or "women." Men, however, were never referred to as "boys," but as "men," "young men" or "young fellas." When commentators identified an athlete by first name alone, the athlete was far more likely to be female than male, particularly in tennis (e.g. "Martina" [Navratilova], "Zena" [Garrison], "Steffi" [Graf]). When men were referred to by first names only, the players were always men of color ("Rumeal" [Robinson], "Ramon" [Ramos]). White male basketball players were never referred to by just their first names. (See chart.) Linguists have often found that members of dominant social groups are called by their last names and refer to others by first names. In sports, the practice reduces female athletes and athletes of color to the role of children, while giving adult status to white male athletes. To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2495 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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