Female Sports Journalists Still Battle Sexism At Forefront Of Societal Infrastructure.
Examining how sexism in sports journalism continues to impede women’s ability to garner equal footing with their male counterparts.
When she was 21 in her first week as a sports reporter, Laura Albanese was doing clerical work at her desk. A male colleague passed by and whispered, “Hey, what are you doing here? There are no boobs in sports.” That’s when she realized she had a long way to go to prove herself in a predominantly male field.
“I felt pretty terrible,” recalled Albanese, now a general assignment sports reporter for Newsday. “A big part of me knew it was a joke, but a bigger part of me knew that no one quite took me seriously yet.”
This sadly punctuates the fact that while women have broken through the workforce’s glass ceiling, their success has hardly been a slam dunk. Sexism continues to be a significant hurdle in the ever-competitive world of sports journalism.
When women enter sports journalism, “they’re immediately doubted,” said Albanese. “They’re immediately thought of as maybe someone who doesn’t know as much, or someone who hasn’t played the sport, or someone who just doesn’t understand the intricacies.”
Other female sports journalists have faced humiliation on the job. Kristin Ferrara, a writer for NY Sports Day, often debates with New York Knicks fans on Twitter. Depending on the opinions she posts, she has been called a “stupid bitch,” “ugly,” or told to go to the kitchen.
Now, Ferrara avoids posting personal pictures on Twitter “because people are terrible,” she said. Ever since the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship in 2016, her Twitter avatar has been a picture of J.R. Smith holding a championship trophy. Her avatar, along with “kris” in her Twitter handle, often make it difficult for users to tell that she is a woman. “When people attack me [on Twitter], some think I’m a guy,” said Ferrara. “The tone of an argument is different if they think you’re male.”
Ferrara sometimes even takes people mistaking her for a male as a compliment because that shows people are regarding her viewpoints as legitimate, which makes it “more of a fair fight.”
“People insult others, but guys with other guys will at least take the other viewpoint seriously even if they disagree,” she said.
Stories like Albanese’s and Ferrara’s are unsurprising because of how few female sports journalists there are. The chances of finding a woman in sports journalism are about the same as finding an American who doesn’t use the Internet. A Pew Research Center analysis in 2016 found that 13 percent of Americans don’t use the Internet, while a study done by the Associated Press Sports Editors in 2014 show that 13.3 percent of the entire staff at 100 United States and Canadian newspapers and websites are women.
The fact that female sports journalists represent just a few faces in a market catered toward males makes them more prone to being judged as well.
Tina Cervasio, a 19-year broadcast veteran who has worked for MSG Network and CBS Sports, described what happened recently after she incorrectly stated the year of a rule change. “You make that little mistake, [and] they blame it on you that you’re a woman,” she said. “[They’ll say], ‘Oh, she’s a woman, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s not good enough.’”
Cervasio also recalled an incident in 2006 when she interviewed Boston Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett on live television following the team’s loss to the Baltimore Orioles. She asked Beckett a question about his approach to fastballs in the game, to which Beckett replied, “What do you know about a 98-mile-per-hour fastball?”
“It was shocking,” said Cervasio, though she added that her relationship with Beckett was amended by the time the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series.
Locker room incidents, like Cervasio’s, though still present, appear to be less prevalent now than they were in the 1970’s and 1980’s. This is in part due to the fact that sports journalism is “not a novelty anymore,” said Sara Peters, a featured New York Knicks columnist for Bleacher Report. Women are “able to ask the same exact questions, do the same job, [and] just be a woman while doing it.”
Times may have changed, with extreme levels of sexism — women were granted equal access to locker rooms in 1978 — long gone, but the large gender divide in sports journalism still remains.
“You are the outlier when you come in as a woman in a male field,” said Albanese.
Sexism, combined with women having little presence in sports journalism, could make sports journalism a less appealing career for women to pursue.
“Some [women] are very intimidated about even entering [sports journalism] because of sexism,” said Erika Fernandez, a sports reporter for BlackSportsOnline and FOX. Fernandez admitted one of her biggest struggles when entering the field was “not seeing too many people to identify as.”
However, her experiences in sports journalism thus far have been fairly positive, and she now looks at her status as a female sports journalist in a more favorable light. “Nine times out of ten, I’m really the only female in the locker room, so I have a lot of advantages,” said Fernandez. “It’s an opportunity for you to make a difference and stand out. Moments like these are meant to be taken for greatness.”
There have been other recent developments that highlight positive change in sports journalism. Earlier this year, the Washington Post announced it would become the first newspaper to have women covering every major professional sports beat. Still, the Post’s decision, while monumental, shows that progress in sports journalism is still needed, with this breakthrough occurring in 2017.
The Post has long been a publication that’s supported women in sports journalism, according to GoodSports. ESPN’s Rachel Nichols began her career with the Post; Christine Brennan, the first woman to cover the Washington Redskins beat, joined the Post in 1985; and Sally Jenkins, the first woman inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame, had two stints with the Post during her career.
However, aside from the Post and some other publications, such as ESPN — which is known for having a variety of female voices from anchoring to reporting — female representation in sports journalism is sparse. The greater implications are these actions only serve to keep sexism alive in society. In an era where women have risen in virtually every other industry, sports needs to serve as the first agent of change, or risk setting back years of progress.
“Sports is a microcosm of our society in many ways,” said B.J. Schecter, a former editor for Sports Illustrated. “Sports has to be a leader and really just [put] women on equal playing field, and until we do that, we’re going to always have this disparity between male and female representation.”
