Race, Gender and Media Class Reflection Part 2

 This past week, our class went over women in media and how their roles are affected due to their gender. The discussion item that was posted on Canvas was a "Mean Tweets" video directed towards two female sports reporters. Being a sports journalism major, I felt inclined to watch the video to see how women in my same profession might be treated differently than me, as I am a man.

The video started out lighthearted enough, with the "Mean Tweets" simply being some goofy tweets that could be shrugged off by the women when they heard them. As the video went on, however, the tweets got more vile and obscene. The men who were reading the tweets to the two reporters began to ask if they had to read the tweets and were visibly uncomfortable. Some even called back to a traumatic experience the reporter had and wished it upon her again.

Watching a video like that made me realize how much easier it is for women to endure harassment online, especially in a male dominated field like sports media. Being a sports journalist myself and having some experience around UNT sports, I can attest that the environment, especially online, is hostile. One of my fellow staff writers and the North Texas Daily wrote a column stating his opinion about a particular issue in sports, and received some negative hate online from a couple of UNT fans just for stating his opinion. If you combine that with the premeditated dislike for women in sports, it can reach levels of harassment as seen in the YouTube video.

Another fact from the video that surprised me was that it was from 9 years ago... I thought it would be way earlier than then. It just goes to show you how long women have been getting discriminated against in the media field. Lately, however, I have seen an uptick in female analysts on sports shows on ESPN that are in the mix with male crews. As time goes on, I think we may see a dwindle in the harassment, and an uptick in the appreciation for women who are passionate about sports.

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