Sex Appeal

Play-the-game-Magazine-2002.qxd

11-06-2003

11:43

Side 14

Sex appeal

– an alternative to talent?

Sport is big business. In the fight for sponsorship and media coverage, female athletes are increasingly selling their sexuality, while the media plays along By Marlene Jensen

Is

a strong woman an attractive woman? And is a strong woman interesting? The American athlete Marion Jones won five gold medals at the Olympic Games in Sydney. But even though she was certainly the most successful female athlete at the games, she was not the most photographed. That honour went to Amy Acuff, the American high jumper and part time model, who won nothing. Amy Acuff has since claimed that her goal was not so much to win medals, but to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In an interview with the magazine Rolling Stone, she said 'I wanted to demonstrate that female athletes can be competitive, ambitious and successful and still retain their feminine qualities.' Acuff's implication appears to be that competitiveness, drive and success are not 'natural' female qualities – unlike the ability to appear half naked in magazines! Despite never winning a Grand Slam tournament (she won Australian Open in double with Martina Hingis in 1999, though never a title in single!), Anna Kournikova is the most photographed sportswoman of modern times. Lindsay Davenport has achieved this feat on numerous occasions, but for every picture of Davenport, 20 of Kournikova are published. A quick search on the Internet reveals the extent of the two players' respective popularity. While a search on Lindsay Davenport's name gives 92,100 hits, Anna Kournikova gives 491,000. »Anna Kournikova's profile is built around her sexuality,« says Alina Bernstein, an Israeli sociologist and anthropologist based at Leicester University. »It is her body and her looks that get her attention – not her performances.« Alina Bernstein, who is the introductory speaker in a debate entitled The Kournikova Syndrome, believes that to

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a large extent, Kournikova herself orchestrates the type of media coverage she is subjected to. This is evident by the way she poses for the cameras. »Anna Kournikova is not necessarily a victim of the media,« she says. »Not only is she sexy, she is also very powerful. Without her cooperation, the media would not have been able to create the image which she has today.«

Sex symbols »The media has a huge influence on sport because an overwhelmingly large proportion of the public experience sport through the media,« continues Bernstein. »Although the media considers itself to be reflecting what is important in sport, it neglects female athletes. Their underrepresentation gives the impression that they either don't exist or they are of very little value.« Alina Bernstein adds that this lack of coverage is partly to blame for the fact that many sportswomen have difficulty finding sponsors. »Women did beat men at their own game in the media's coverage of last year's Wimbledon tennis tournament,« she continues. »The women's doubles final, for example, attracted more US TV viewers than the men's singles final'. However, she adds that this boom in popularity was not caused by a fresh enthusiasm for women's tennis – rather, by the 'attractiveness' of the female players on show. »Appearance is important, but not at any price,« she adds. Despite the tendency for women to attract more media coverage as a result, Bernstein believes that by being portrayed as sex symbols, they are being symbolically degraded. As one example, she cites the different methods in which sports commentators refer to women and

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Search for Anna Kournikova on one Internet search engine and you will be presented with 491,000 hits and links to homepages across the world. You can purchase her pin up calendar, watch the video she recently made with her new boyfriend Ricky Iglecias and even be lucky enough to contract a computer virus named after her. The pop band 'Binge' has a song about Kournikova currently featuring in the Lycos Top Ten Video chart.

Play-the-game-Magazine-2002.qxd

11-06-2003

11:43

Side 15

“

This initiative is the only of its kind worldwide. It is a very

important project if we want to preserve values in sport Sandro Donati, Head of Research, CONI, Italy

”

PHOTO: POLFOTO

»Sport has become business at the highest level – if you cannot provide the right goods you have to produce something else to sell,« says Gertrud Pfister from the University of Copenhagen

Smart business woman, seductive babe or sharp tennis player? Anna Kournikova knows how to win the media without any major victories at the tennis field

Starting the Day With Sport Many Vietnamese workers participate in some form of sporting activity at four or five o' clock in the morning. Thúy Há Nguén, a sports journalist on the English Language Vietnam News, is no exception

men. »An investigation showed that women were referred to by their Christian name 53% of the time. This compared to just eight percent of men,« she points out.

For Thúy Há Nguén, starting the day with a game of bad-

Beauty for Sale

lack playing partners – her mother, father, brother, neig-

»Beauty is not something we are or we have – it's something we make or create. And the media has a powerful role in determining the 'attractiveness' of athletes,« says Professor Gertrud Pfister of Copenhagen University. »Over half the media's coverage of sportswomen concerns their appearance, not their performance.« Like Alina Bernstein, Gertrud Pfister believes that the media portrays sportswomen as the vulnerable sex, and that many women willingly play their part in the process. To emphasise her point she shows overhead projections displaying pictures of half-naked women – amongst them badminton star Camilla Martin from her photo session for the cover of men's magazine 'M'. Gertrud Pfister adds that the female athlete who poses most in the media was, and still is, Anna Kournikova. »Anna Kournikova is for sale,« says Gertrud Pfister. »On the Internet there is no limit to what you can buy – Anna Kournikova books, pin-up calendars, and much, much more. She has become the object of collective voyeurism.«

hbours and friends all follow the same routine.

minton is as natural as brushing her teeth. In fact, half an hour in the badminton court is generally the first thing she does after finishing her bathroom duties. And she does not

Similar morning schedules exist for many thousands of Vietnamese, who take over Hanoi's parks early in the morning

»Media present female athletes as sterotype sex symbols« says Alina Bernstein, media researcher from Tel Aviv

to warm themselves up before starting work. »Exercise is an excellent start for a long, deskbound working day in front of the computer,« says Thúy Há Nguén. Despite the fact that she is a competent badminton player, she rarely plays in tournaments. The same applies to tennis, which once in a while replaces badminton as her preferred morning exercise. On the tennis court she plays with three or four friends – but, as with badminton, they do not play structured matches. When the points are not counted, there can be no winners nor losers. Thúy Há Nguén has previously been a member of a tennis club, but as membership entailed playing matches, her involvement was short-llived She prefers to play for her own health and well being. In fact, sports results only begin to matter when she arrives at the editorial desk of the Vietnam News in central Hanoi. Here, she helps to produce four daily pages of results and reports focusing on both national and international sport. Such a task demands sports journalists are at the peak of their form. khr

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