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Using an experimental methodology, the present study investigated college students' attitudes toward media images of female athletes. We are particularly focused on how viewers perceive media images of female athletes that have both an appearance and athleticism focus, such as those found in ESPN's The Body Issue. An aim of our study was to assess viewers' attitudes toward these images that are not purely objectified, thereby contributing to the objectification literature and providing empirical data relevant to theorizing on the social impact of these images. U.S. college students (n = 563) viewed one of four types of images of the same athletes including: (a) sexualized athletes, (b) sexualized performance athletes (in which both athleticism and sexualization are present), (c) sport performance athletes (in which athletes are depicted playing their sport), or (d) non-sexualized athletes. They then rated the athletes' competence, esteem, and sexual appeal. Overall, sexualized performance athletes were rated more positively than sexualized athletes, but less positively than sport performance athletes. These results have implications for advocacy efforts calling for more media coverage in which women are depicted as athletes rather than as sexual objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leading up to the early 2000s, feminist researchers identified numerous representational practices through which the sports media ignored, trivialized and sexualized sportswomen. At that time, a distillation of the research into a set of six unwritten media 'rules' concluded that, at best, the traditional media approached women's sport ambivalently within an either/ or discourse of pretty or powerful that constructed femininity and athleticism as incompatible. In the past decade, the rise of Internet-based news and social media has dramatically changed the field of representation, including an explosion in public voice and information sharing on social networking sites. In this changed media landscape, I synthesize U.S. and global research into 15 historical and emerging rules of media representation, in order to extend researchers' understandings of the current status and range of representational practices. In addition, I employ the theoretical lenses of third-wave feminism and cultural studies to advance the ways in which feminist researchers can conceptualize and understand historical and emerging trends in how sportswomen are imagined in popular culture. In particular, I consider the implications of third wave feminism for understanding the emergence of a pretty and powerful discourse in the U.S. that challenges dominant interpretations of sports media coverage and points to the value for feminist sport media researchers of expanding their interpretive frameworks for making sense of media coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental study was conducted to determine the impact of expertise and attractiveness on perceived appropriateness of the endorser with a women’s tennis event and, subsequently, attitudes towards the event and intentions to purchase tickets. The sample was comprised of 184 undergraduate students at three U.S. universities. Hypotheses were tested through observed path analysis and results indicated both attractiveness and expertise were significantly related to the endorser’s appropriateness and explained 24% of the variance. However, there was a significant interaction; in the lower expertise condition, the more attractive athlete was rated as a more appropriate endorser. Further, endorser appropriateness led to more positive attitudes and intentions to purchase tickets, and the model explained 13 and 48% of the variance in these variables respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although sport access for females has greatly improved, certain behaviors continue to be considered more or less appropriate for females depending upon how compatible they are with biologically or socially constructed female characteristics. However, young women who have grown up playing sports and continue participation at the college level have constructed meanings about being a young woman and an athlete. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed to investigate how seven gymnasts and seven softball players competing in NCAA Division I athletics view and contend with a “female/athlete paradox.” These women recognized preferred femininity and at times constructed images based on this notion. However, they also embraced their athleticism and felt at ease choosing not to perform femininity in some contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental analysis was conducted to determine the effects of involvement, commentator framing, and gender on viewer attitudes toward female athletes. The sample was comprised of 112 students at a mid-western university in the United States. Hypotheses and research questions were tested through a 2 × 3 multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Results indicated the overall MANCOVA was significant. Involvement was positively related to viewer attitudes’ towards the dependent variables and explained 27.8% of the variance. Gender explained 39.3% of the variance in attitudes as male viewers had significantly lower mean scores on all dependent variables. Male viewers had significantly lower scores than female viewers in the positive framing condition; the interaction explained 8% of the variance in viewers’ perceptions of respectability of female athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specific aims of this study were twofold. First, we sought to apply the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, I. (2002). Construction of a standardized questionnaire for the Theory of Planned Behavior. Unpublished manuscript. [online]. Retrieved from ) to head coaching intentions among assistant coaches of women’s teams. We also aimed to establish the most important behavioral, normative, and control beliefs specific to male and female coaches’ head coaching intentions. We developed and validated a questionnaire to collect data through mailed surveys ( n = 710, women = 466, men = 244). Findings supported the efficacy of the theory of planned behavior as a predictor of head coaching intentions in both men and women. Further, gender differences were noted on intentions, attitudes, and subjective norms; women coaches had lower scores than men on each. Finally, a few significant semi-partial correlations between the specific belief-based indicators and intentions were noted, and these did indicate relationships that distinguished the men from the women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares perceptions of encouragement and support from socializing agents for female collegiate athletes competing in 1979 and 1989. Influence of mothers, siblings, friends and coaches to female sport involvement; Sources and degrees of social support for female athletes; Implications for encouraging more active lifestyles among female children teenagers.

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the relationship of the self-esteem of female athletes and nonathletes to sex role type and sport type. The athletic group was comprised of 75 female collegiate athletes from eight sports and the nonathletic group consisted of a random sample of 75 female nonathletes. An assessment of self-esteem and sex role type was completed through administering to all subjects the short form of the (PRF) ANDRO Scale of Masculinity and Femininity, and the Interpersonal Disposition Inventory (IDI). On the basis of the results of the IDI, the subjects were categorized into four sex role types: androgynous, masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated. Based upon previous research, it was predicted that (1) athletes would exhibit higher self-esteem scores than nonathletes, (2) the self-esteem of androgynous individuals would be higher than other sex role types, (3) the self-esteem of feminine or undifferentiated individuals would be lower than other sex role types, (4) the self-esteem of female athletes in higher femininity status sports would be greater than those in lower femininity status sports, and (5) there would be a greater proportion of androgynous athletes and feminine nonathletes. The following significant results were found: nonathletes in the feminine sex role type were lower in self-esteem than all other groups; and there was a greater proportion of androgynous athletes and feminine nonathletes than expected by chance. There were no differences in self-esteem of athletes in higher femininity status vs lower femininity status sports. These findings were discussed relative to past research, and the potential impact of sport on the psychosocial development or selection of certain sex role types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]