Writer shares concern over females in sports journalism

Over the last few decades, women in sports journalism have gone through a living hell to reach a point where they are even the least bit respected. They've been looked down on, verbally harassed and worse--sexually harassed. All of these have improved greatly, but I still won't say that women are on an equal playing field with men in sports journalism.

An argument that many men will bring up, especially on the subject of football, is that women don't play the sport, so how can they really understand it? That's ridiculous to me. There are plenty of men in sports journalism who write about sports they have no experience in playing.

Maybe it's my Texas-football-watching upbringing paired with my NCAA Football video game playing, but I would be willing to bet that I know football just as well as any man that I sit in the press box with. Still, even in just covering football at ASU, it took me a few weeks to not feel like coaches, players and other reporters didn't take me seriously.

Whether they meant to make me feel that way or not, it's an intimidating setting for a female to work in.

I can deal with the disrespect, though. I can deal with men looking at me like, "does she really know what she's talking about?" In fact, it gives me the last laugh, in a sense, when I'm doing an interview at practice and all the male reporters leave before my turn to ask questions, not interested in what I might have to ask. It's their loss, really--I get to use quotes from their questions and add a few of my own that no one else stayed around to catch.

It isn't the disrespect of my sports knowledge that bothers me. The thing I can't stand, which I haven't personally experienced and hope I never have to, is the sexual harassment that women have faced in sports journalism. The ugly truth of a small percentage of women working in such a male dominated setting is that women are objectified, and that makes me sick.

Incidences of sexual harassment go back to 1985, when sportswriter Paola Biovin was mocked by players in the St. Louis Cardinals locker room, asking if she was there to interview someone or to look at a bunch of guys' penises.

In 1990, Lisa Olson, working for the Boston Herald at the time, was taunted in the locker room by New England Patriots players, making vulgar comments and gestures towards her as she tried to do an interview. When she went public about the incident, hundreds of Patriot fans sent her hate mail, her tires were slashed, her apartment was robbed, and even the Patriots owner publicly called her "a classic bitch."

I would love to say that these issues have since then disappeared, but just this summer, ESPN's Erin Andrews was videotaped naked in her hotel room while on assignment and the video was searched over 300 million times before she even knew it existed.

As all of this was happening, college football was starting again and Andrews was about to be on the road again, covering some of the biggest college football games every Saturday for ESPN.

Just the fact that she's gone back to work and continued to do what she loves after being a victim of video voyeurism speaks volumes to other women. I have the upmost respect for her because I'm sure people have said things to her about it during the last couple of months that she's been covering football.

The issue of injustice to women in sports journalism isn't about the low percentage of women who have jobs as sportswriters, editors and broadcasters. The reality is that there are probably more men pursuing those jobs than women, so I wouldn't ever expect it to end up 50-50. Laws have been passed to allow women in locker room settings, and networks have policies promoting equal opportunities for minorities, including women, in sports journalism.

The problem is the way women are looked down upon and objectified in those settings. It should never be an issue for women to interview male athletes. Women should not have to fear being degraded if they walk into a locker room. Erin Andrews shouldn't have to fear staying in a hotel when she's on the road doing ESPN coverage, and she shouldn't have to worry about people making comments about what happened to her in June.

The problem is this: a law or a policy won't change the way that men think of the women who cover sports. Until the men that work with those women and the players and coaches of the sports that they cover learn to respect them as professionals and stop looking at them as groupies, this issue will not subside.

I think I speak on behalf of a lot of other females in sports journalism when I say that I'm not there to be a groupie. I cover sports because I love sports--I was an athlete and I'm passionate about athletics.

So stop flattering yourselves, boys. We aren't covering sports to get some insider groupie-like treatment--we're just trying to do our jobs.