Female Athletes' Media Footprint on Sports Press Olympic Games of 1968
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
European Journal of Social Sciences ISSN 1450-2267 Vol. 57 No 4 March, 2019, pp.453-473 http://www.europeanjournalofsocialsciences.com/ Female Athletes’ Media Footprint on Sports Press Olympic Games of 1968 Rosa María Valles Ruiz Professor-researcher of the Hidalgo State Autonomous University (UAEH, Mexico) Ph.D. on Political and Social Science by the National Autonomous University of Mexico She works on the research area of Gender and History Discourse Analysis, Oral History, and Student Movements E-mail: [email protected] Xochitl Andrea Sen Santos Ph.D., Political and Social Science by the National Autonomous University of Mexico Professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico She works on the research areas Sports and Gender Discourse Analysis and Oral History E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This paper's main objective is to identify the gender stereotypes on sports press about female athletes on the Olympic Games of 1968 through the use of discourse analysis and gender perspective. For the gender perspective, the proposal by Rodríguez and González will be used; they present six analysis categories: traditional, progressive and/or innovative, liberal, biological, educational and psychological. For the discourse analysis, parts of the model by Gutiérrez-Vidrio (2010). She proposes the study of the journalistic speech on a macro discursive field throughout the acts of speech (description, interpretation, and appreciation) and the recreation of the discourse's production conditions that are expressed on the answers to five questions: Who is the discourse emitter? Whom is it aimed for? What does it talk about? Where does it come from? At what circumstantial moment is the discourse emitted? The traditional and biological approaches are closely linked to press stereotypes regarding female athletes through the categories of beauty and racial discrimination. Physical beauty highlights in detriment of sporty dexterity. On a smaller measure, some texts are linked to the liberal theory when the athletes' skills were highlighted. The theoretical approach and the utilized methodology showed its relevance. Keywords: Olympic Games 1968, female athletes, gender and History, discourse analysis, female stereotypes 1. Introduction “Corporal training priorities is common to both sexes, although it is headed to different objectives. On boys […] it consists on developing strength; on girls, it is about arousing charms”. Jean Jacques Rousseau 453 European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 57, Issue 4 March (2019) The overwhelming –and lapidary– opinion from Rousseau (1712-1778) about the role of women's physical skills is just an indication of a stance that marked an abyssal difference between public and private ambiances. For Rousseau, the private and the public ambiances were spheres with "neither space nor time" relationships between them. (Calderón, 2005). As Fernando Calderón considers, the philosopher conceived families as an institution "insensitive to History, alienated from the course of time, separated from what is public by a male decision; what is public, on the other hand, addressed the labor of marking the rhythm, and if families had never gathered, the story of our species would have barely started" (2005). Calderón attacks Rousseau, who says in his Discourse on sciences that "the inequality was introduced among men by talents' distinction and virtues' degradation" but forgets "or he rather ignored that such fatal inequality was also introduced by men by subordinating women". (2005). On her behalf, Rosa Cobo (1995) condemns Rousseau that even when he was a defender of equality and an exceptional exponent of disparities that the powerful rich people's privileges caused in society, had forgotten the oldest retainer: the women's. María Luisa Cavana (1996) reviews Cobo's job and highlights the philosopher's achievements when placing human reason as a universalized principle although relegating women's potential. Rousseau redefines the patriarchy and in his well-known Social Contract female subordination plays a crucial part inside his democratic scheme. Including women within the political arena "would bring down all the contractual building […]" (Cobo, 1995). 2. Feminism, Sports and Media Since the XIX century, feminism struggled categorically for women's access to all education levels even if the feminist from that century later accorded on the objective of one single demand: women's suffrage. However, the thoughts of the female population's rights were already registered since the XVII century. William Petty said: "One day both arithmetic and accountancy knowledge will ornament the girls better than a lace stocked dress and will protect them from cold better than fur coats". (Palanca, 2018). The XVIII century registers two idealist female warriors: Olympia de Gouges (1748-1793) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), and also a philosopher whom Voltaire qualified as "universal": Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794). The British thinker Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) had a vision that related women population's inferiority with the universal value of happiness. He expressed: "the happiness and interest of one female person constitute a big part of universal happiness, as valuable as the ones from a man". (Bentham, 1777). But the links between women and sports were barely mentioned, regardless of the Juvenal's phase in the Satires that immortalized the phrase "Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano" (To pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body). On the XVII, XVIII, and XIX centuries, according to Gabriel Angelotti Pasteur, pedagogues assumed from this sentence a "new sports ideology for the orb". Angelotti mentions Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), who talked about developing "the full man" constituted by the triad of heart, body, and reason, and also about John Dewey, who suggested the use of physical exercise to impulse "the high values of the Western culture" (Angelotti, 2014). He talked about a "full man" but not about a "full woman". The participation demand gradually turned into a social demand from women whose names were not always registered. An emancipatory element was the women's appropriation of writing. This binomial was a relevant factor to establish […] "a luminous path whose sidewalks were opened […] by exceptional women whose common denominator was the pertinence of a privileged social class and a family raising that allowed them the access to reading first than writing" (Valles, 2017). 454 European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 57, Issue 4 March (2019) History registers Christine de Pisan (1364-1430) as the first female writer or "woman of letters". At first, women were involved only in issues that were "feminine", such as children's care, fashion, home labors, cooking recipes, and etcetera. Some of them printed their ideas on papers, magazines, and journals. The media's presence led to visibility and thus to women's starring role. Although, the arrival to the public sphere was a hard task, "slowed down or directly excluded and aborted in long ages […] even if it's notorious that its register has made both the existence and social presence of women tangible". (Sánchez, 2009). On the sports ambiance, female participation on the Olympic Games and their conquest within the media has meant a slow, arduous task. With ups and downs, a great achievement has been reached by rejecting the quote from Pierre Fredy Baron de Coubertin, known as the father of the Olympic Games: "women's presence inside the stadium happens to be unsightly, poorly interesting and also incorrect but for the function they have: to crown the victor with the wreaths of triumph." (Garcia, 1990). 2.1. Olympic Games: from 1896 to 1968 The first Olympic Games were celebrated in Athena, Greece, from April 6 th to 15 th in 1896 and there were no female contestants; on the second edition held in Paris, 1900, 22 women defeated the exclusion and managed to contest along 975 male athletes for the Olympic glory, according to the official numbers from the International Olympic Committee. In 1904, women’s participation descended from 2% to 1% on the Olympic Games from St. Louis, USA. According to the numbers from the Committee, female participation limited to the 2% of the athletes total. Originally, the disciplines women could compete at were: tennis, archery, golf and croquet; yet, after some editions races, figure skating, swimming and diving were added for women. By the year of 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium, female achievements had started being conversation topics, such as USA’s Ethelda Bleibtrey: she obtained the Gold medal in three swimming competitions and she also participated in five more tests in which she broke the world records. In 1924, there was a female participation of 4%; in 1928, it was 10%; in 1932, 9%; in 1936, 8%. Due to war, the Olympics of 1940 and 1944 were cancelled. From 1948 to 1968, female participation stayed in averages of 10, 11 and even 13%. From 1968 to 1972, the number of women participating decreased one percentage point (Munich, Western Germany); in 1976 (Montreal, Canada) the percentage increased to 21%. In 1980 (Moscow, USSR), female participation was only augmented to 22%. For years later on L.A., United States, it increased one more point (23%). In 1988 (Seoul, South Korea), female athletes increased their participation on 3% and reached 26%. On the Games from 1992 in Barcelona, Spain, the increase was registered with a 3%. A crucial jump was logged in 1996 in Atlanta, United States, when female participation went from 29 to 34%. On the Games from 2000 at Sydney, Australia, the increase of four percentage points and it reached the 38% of female participation. On Athena, Greece (2004), the percentage jumped from 38 to 41%. On Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Games, it arrived to 42% whilst four years later on London, England, the percentage increased on two more points and reached the 44% of female participation. On the Olympic Games of 2016 hosted at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this percentage was augmented to 46%.