Female sports writers and fans harassed on social media
(This article contains strong language. Viewer discretion is advised)
Female sports journalists and fans are facing threats, vulgarities, and a lack of respect on social media, wrote Sports Illustrated writer Julie DiCaro. These women face constant public harassment for voicing their opinions on sports.
Posts like the one below harass women by objectifying them.
If you look up “female sports journalist” in Google, you will find sites like Men’s Fitness counting down the top 40 hottest sports journalists before you see a site that considers a woman’s perspective on sports. This leads to the idea that there is a societal problem where the women are hired to attract views rather than engage in thoughtful conversation.
DiCaro points out that even when dealing with very sensitive topics, such as rape and sexual abuse, men post vicious attacks toward her and other women on social media.
Here is a post showing the discrimination DiCaro has to deal with on a near daily basis.
Here is another vial post geared toward DiCaro. This time wishing rape upon her.
DiCaro said some of these posts are not taken down immediately and she sees them far too often.
Another development has been the decrease of women following sports on Twitter due to the harassment they get from men for their opinions regarding sports.
A thinkprogress.org article by Wendy Thurm said women were kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkmay have left the sports world of Twitter from 2013 in numbers because men were open to harass and belittle women in the “sports bar” like atmosphere of Twitter.
Women are entering on “guy’s territory” and a few hateful people (mostly men) are lashing out at women for just wanting to be in the conversation, wrote Dicaro.
Women should be accepted to voice their views on sports. Social media users should welcome women because they bring out new perspectives and variety. They should not be relegated to the sidelines only to be objectified for entertainment.
All of this negativity toward female sports journalists and women interested in sports is simply uncalled for and is shameful. We all play a part to bring down the culprits and to prevent harassment by fazing out this negative mindset.
