The Media's Sexualization of Female Athletes: A Bad Call for the Modern Game

Student Pulse
Emily Liang
October 24, 2011

This essay explores the media's sexualization of female athletes and how it affects both the viewers and the athletes. Liang notes that the sexualization of female athletes may actually diminish the self-esteem of female viewers at large. Research on women's sports by Allison Tracy, Ph.D., and Sumru Erkut, Ph.D. was cited in this essay. Their research found "that despite the media's sexualized depictions, more and more girls have joined sports and subsequently developed greater self-esteem. However, they also found that while the self-esteem of girls increased from sports, it was significantly less than that of boys who played sports."

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