Interrogating inequalities in Sports Media: Examining gender/race representation in Sports Illustrated

In this entry, I will be examining the gender representation in Sports Illustrated's covers in 2013. According to Sport Illustrated Cover Vault, there have been 60 covers in the year 2013. My initial observations are that there are two covers where a female is strictly the focus. The two covers include the famous Kate Upton swim suit cover and Kate Upton sitting on top of two baseball players. Aside from Kate Upton, the other 58 covers consist mostly of baseball, basketball, and football players. They are also all men. In the occasional covers, females are used as a prop or is being manipulated for sex appeal.

Through my observations, I have come to the conclusion that gender/sex stereotypes are still being reinforced through the media. Through sports media, we not only see that females are seen as highly sexualized. In the sports illustrated covers, the only time women were seen was if they were half naked or in the background used as means of a diverse crowd. While sex plays a role, there is an expected gender that follows sex. People don't realize that both men and women can have different genders. When most of the sports illustrated covers show that all the male athletes are muscular, it shows that men need to be masculine. We rarely see skinny feminine men on covers. This just shows how society praises the ideal masculine man. In addition to men being held up to certain standards, women also are. If society deems that women need to look like Kate Upton, it hold women to a standard that they all need to look like models. By sports illustrated normalizing the ideal body of men and women, it reinforces the idea that if men and women don't look a certain way, they are deemed not as ideal.

References:
http://cnnsi.com/vault/cover/select/2013-01-01/2013-12-31/dd/3/index.htm