In the 2013 Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, Assistant Communication Studies Professor Sarah Wolter teamed up with Jo Ann Buysse from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities to write an article about gender representation in NCAA media guides.

The article, “Gender Representation in 2010 NCAA Division I Media Guides: The Battle for Equity was Only Temporarily Won,” examines cultural narratives of collegiate media guide covers and compares the findings with previous research by Kane and Buysse. Both show a shift from non-action images of female athletes to images of athletic competence, and a decline in gender differences between female and male athletes.

Wolter and Buysse focused on specific aspects such as uniform presence, court location, pose presentation, conference affiliation, sport, and also compared their data from 2010 to data collected in 2004.

The results from examining the 2009-2010 media guides showed that there were significant differences between female and male athletes in pose presentation. When considering pose presentation, Wolter and Buysse defined active poses as an actual simulation of the sport being performed, and passive as a pose that doesn’t represent the athlete’s skill. The results showed that men were significantly more likely to be portrayed as competent than women athletes were.

When Wolter and Buysse compared data collected from 2004 to data collected from 2010, they found that measures of court, pose, and themes of true athleticism and femininity or masculinity showed marked differences.

“I think the most important point is who controls these images. Media conglomerates are not doing this to celebrate female athletes; they’re doing it just to make more money,” Wolter said.

Female athletes are consistently presented as less competent athletes than males. Gender differences show that there is also a downturn in portraying female athletes as competent sportswomen between 2004 and 2010.

“There are a lot of amazing things going on with female athletes, so it’s frustrating that they’re not being celebrated for what they’re doing,” Wolter stated.

Even though it has been forty years since Title IX was passed, female athletic participation is still a threat to what has always been a male institution.

“I think that they [women] should be depicted as actual athletes and not lesser version of male athletes,” Senior Nordic Skiier Marian Lund said.

Sports are one of the most fundamental levels of culture as a political, economic, and social institution. With this in mind, Wolter and Buysse claim that female athletes deserve the same type of coverage that male athletes receive on media guide covers.

More recent studies show that only schools in Division III provided equal coverage of male and female athletes on their athletic department web pages. At Gustavus, female student athletes are aware that they are recognized more than female athletes at Division I and Division II schools.

“I think Gustavus does a good job of recognizing both males and females…generally men’s teams have more fans and supporters than women’s, but I am sure they are advertised pretty similarly. But, men’s teams also always seem to have more funds available,” Senior Basketball Player Britta Rinke said.

Prestigious and influential sport conferences were not as likely to portray athletes in action in 2010 than they were in 2004. There was about a 25 percent decrease for all athletes in 2010 and a 24.1 percent decline for women. There was a 9 percent decline in all athletes portrayed in action with an 11.7 percent decline for women compared to a 6.9 percent decline for men.

The results showed that in Division I championship sports, female athletes accounted for 3,411 intercollegiate teams and 76,252 athletes, while male athletes accounted for 2,890 teams and 90,837 athletes between the years of 2009 and 2010.

“A lot of things enforce aggressive, masculine conceptions of the sports which is why I think female athletes aren’t appreciated because we are measuring sports up against this masculine background. When Hegemonic Masculinity is in operation, we don’t have female athletes being appreciated for what they’re doing,” Wolter said.

Regardless of what division is being considered, the studies by Buysse and Wolter show that female athletes aren’t presented as competent athletes as often as male athletes. The covers of intercollegiate media guides from 2009-2010 represent a backward shift suggesting that portrayals of female athletes as competent sportswomen was only won for a short period of time.

The article confirms that female athleticism challenges dominant hegemonic sport ideology and prevails gender order. Whether they are male or female, collegiate athletes commit to their sports for multiple reasons.

“Male athletes automatically get more attention here than female athletes due to the fact that a lot of the major school events are centered around male-dominated sports,” Lund said.

Going into their seasons, college athletes know that a large amount of their free time will be taken up by their commitment to training. With the same amount of work put in, female athletes deserve the same amount of recognition as male athletes.

“I think they [women] should be depicted for the amount of effort they put in and for the heart that they play with. I think women are more emotionally invested in their sports and care more about the game. They don’t get paid millions, and they still play. They play for the love of the game and generally are very good. It is just different than the fast-paced, slam-dunking, men’s sports,” Rinke stated.

Though widespread in 2004, university athletic teams and university controlled media resistance has diminished. Wolter and Buysse’s article suggests that it may be due to new NCAA regulations on media guides or trends in digital convergence, but for whatever reason, female athletes were not presented as seriously as male athletes were in 2009 and 2010 photographs.

The text states that mass media discourse influences how a viewer perceives culture, and acts as a socializing agent that influences teams positively by enhancing athletic involvement. In an ideal media climate, female athletes are portrayed as athletically competent as male athletes. After analyzing the media guides, “the battle forged in 2004 guides was only temporarily won.”