Sport

From an aerial view, societies all around the world are trying to overcome the gap between the status of women and men in all walks of life. Their activities are focused on removing the inequalities, eliminating discrimination and giving every male and female equal importance, equal representation and a level playing field to compete with each other in every way. Same is the case with sports today women are very much keen to not only support the women athletic and sporting activities but also they also love to support women playing and contributing to the same events that were previously designed only for men. However when observed on a television show and researched by reviewing different magazines, it was found out that women are not getting the importance that they actually deserve. They win the same laurels for their countries and societies but still the major focus and attention remains only with the men. Therefore in the following paper, we will see where women are not given representation, why they are not given representation and what else is being done wrong.

The Electronic Media
As far as the electronic media is concerned, it was observed by watching a program on ESPN related to football that even girls are now hosting and anchoring shows that are related to mens football leagues. Although this was not the case in neither cricket nor football that women would comment and talk about the performance of men, however it is appreciated to watch them on sports channels today. Yet, the question lies, where are the real women on the channel being interviewed about their performance in a certain tournament. Yes it is accepted that the channels do broadcast women tournaments as well, although only the major ones such as champions league or world cups, but still the frequency of women athletes coming up on air or in the studio and being interviewed is almost negligible. They are either interviewed on the spot at the tennis court or otherwise. Moreover, there is probably one sport where women are given importance and that is tennis. Otherwise, women around the world are competing with their counter parts in almost all sporting events but they are not given the importance that they deserve. For example, when two teams compete in a cricket match, cricket stars or called in the studios to be interviewed, why is it not the case with women Are they less important Are they only good for selling female and motherly products No, it is the perception that the media has created in the minds of the consumers.

The Print Media
Apart from the importance and representation that females receive on the electronic media, another problem that is related to their promotion is the way they are portrayed. Going through a couple of sports magazines in the library and maintaining focus on the men and women advertisements, a huge difference was observed. Whenever we see Roger Fedrer, Tiger woods or any other male star on a print ad, all of the times they are either in their uniforms or showing in action (Holste, 2000). However, the irony is that when we look at ads with women stars, they are mostly out of action, out of uniforms and most frequently out of clothes even. These magazines and advertisements are mostly targeted towards women. Like men show action and skill, these women are actually forced to show the hyper sexuality with an added advantage of their skill to play the game which is hardly shown in the ad An example of such ad was a US soccer athlete showing up in a gears ad and not wearing any clothes except holding two soccer balls close to her. Now what does it has to do with the gear or the skill and talent that the women posses. Is it another way to brand super models from the women sports industry  The problem is that all these advertisements in these ads should have shown how powerful these women with respect to the skills are they posses and the achievements that they have gathered. However, this is actually not the case and is also not augmenting the argument of women empowerment. Rather these advertisements are showing these role model women to be so non-threatening, soft, weak and most of all extremely sexual.

Furthermore, apart from pictures, the written texts are even not coherent with what the women are actually capable of and how they can serve as a role model for their next generation. An example of such an ad was on a peoples magazines cover which showed a picture of Olympic figure skaters which had nothing to do or show which sport they belonged to as they were not in their action or uniforms, but it only said ice beauties (Holste, 2000).

Conclusion
The idea here is not to criticize on advertising with these women and giving them the tough and rough importance on television. However, the point that should be noted is that the essence of these role models lies in the profession they work for. The essence is in their skill and the message that they want to send out to other women who want to be like them. Women want to look at them as best of them in the sporting arena and not as best amongst them as models with respect to hyper sexuality. It is a fact that yes those who follow the sport also associate the ambiguous pictures and representation, but the fact is that this way the importance of women participating in the sports is only limited to the live coverage of the match and the rest is just modeling in its true sense.