Selling Our Bodies: Women in Golf

I was watching the TV the other day, and all of a sudden I came across women’s golf. I started watching, as I had never really seen it before, however I was quite surprised by what I saw; the women were wearing short skits. I did not understand this, as the men wear long pants, so it has nothing to do with restricted movement. So it is basically just an attempt to feminize the sport in order to make it more popular.

A few weeks ago I was watching ESPN, and they were introducing a young Australian woman, the broadcaster said; here is this new hot Australian model, and oh yea she plays golf too. I found this frustrating as they introduced her as a model first and paid little attention to the fact that primarily she was an athlete. This is something I am sure would not happen with Tiger Woods, he also models, however I cannot imaging him being introduced as a model. This again demonstrates that women are never really celebrated for their talent in the way that men are.

Upon researching women’s golf more, I came across an article that signified many of the problems female golfers, and female athletes in general face. A pro female Australian golfer set up a calendar to raise money for breast cancer. The calendar was comprised of the top Australian women golfers. However the National Breast Cancer Foundation of Australia (NBCF) pulled their support for it because they felt it was too raunchy. The ladies are pictured wearing vintage clothes, however some people argued the poses were too raunchy. The woman who set it up, Jenny Sevil, was upset that the NBCF withdrew its support, she said that female golfers get few sponsorship opportunities, because unfortunately they are not recognized for their talent. Therefore she created this opportunity as a way to create publicity for their sport. She published the calendar independently.

I found this sad, as in a way women are exploiting their own bodies to get publicity. However I guess it is the nature of the system of female sports that makes them do this. While they ultimately make the decision to use their bodies to get publicity and make money, this appears to be because their sport just does not reward them in the same way that it does men. This is a difficult situation, I don’t know if sports promoting their female athletes talent more would help the situation, or will women’s sport always have less viewers and consequently less money? It seems to me that there is still very much prejudice in the realm of sport, as women are always seen as being inferior to men, and thus we never pay attention to their talents.