Within the more general subject of women and sports advertising, I focused specifically on how the women's bodies are depicted. Using ads from recent copies of Shape and Women's Sports and Fitness, I am looking at the photographic and ideological techniques that advertisers use to create the codes which represent female athletes. Ads are rich cultural narratives created from multiple dialogues about the roles, athleticism, and sexuality of women. Despite the complex nature of the subject matter, these ads depict a very simplistic story. "To be both female and strong today violates traditional codes of feminine identity. Any attempt to reconstruct the body is transgressive against the 'natural' identity of the female body" (Balsamo 1996: 43). The transgression is balanced out by using signifiers of hyper-femininity.
Until just recently, the female body was defined to a large extent by menstruation. "Encumbered as women were with the burdens of menstruation, pregnancy, lactation, and menopause, they were thus instructed to forgo athletic activity in favor of less strenuous pursuits" (Balsamo 1996: 41). " There has been a cultural shift away from this ideology in the last decade in an effort to include women in sports, clearly boosted clearly by the Title 9 legislation. Yet within the mass media, not much has changed; it is just coated differently. This advertising is less about the sport itself and more about being a woman. Gender markers are desperately maintained in women's sports advertising through the images, text, and ideology. Recently, cutting edge advertisers such as Nike, are distinguishing themselves by not relying on these codes, however the majority of this advertising relies heavily on these codes.
Today, the media representations of female athletes tend to draw upon the ideal of woman's natural beauty. Unlike in previous decades, these ads highlight the athletic capabilities and power of the female body, however they also reinforce the dominant cultural order through the blatant sexualization of the athletes' bodies (Balsamo, 1996, 41). This is accomplished through photographic techniques focusing specific attention on a sexualized body part. Balsamo traces this in the coverage of Florence Griffith-Joyner (Flo-Jo) in the 1988 Olympic coverage. Almost every story found a way to focus on her body before her athletic talents. The majority of the pictures of Flo-Jo show her bending over and focus specifically on the sexualized line of her legs. One article spent an entire page talking about her outfit and nails (down to how long it took her to do each nail), and then in the very last sentence the writer managed to mention that she ran the 200 meters faster than any American in history. Flo-Jo is created as a sexual object and her athletic talents are minimized.
Codes for sexuality ooze from every single page of sports ads. There is very little difference between ads in fashion magazines, sports magazines, and pornography. The female body is trapped within male ways of looking. John Berger describes this as the male gaze. "Men act; women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Thus she turns herself into an object--and most particularly an object of vision--a sight" (Berger 1977, 47). The models in the ads either look directly out at the spectator owner or they direct their focus elsewhere but they are keenly aware that they are being watched. They invite the gaze; they work-out to be watched.
The womenıs bodies are photographed in certain ways to facilitate the male gaze and emphasize female sexuality. Similar to the pictures of Flo-Jo, the lines of the womenıs legs, hips, butt, waist, and arms are over-emphasized. They are placed in unnatural poses, such as bent over or completely layed out, both standard porn techniques, to create these lines. Notice the similarity between the Playboy spread of Cindy Crawford and the TYR swimwear ad. Also the clothes these women are pictured in helps facilitate the male gaze. Almost all of the ads I looked at had the woman in a sports bra and lycra shorts or in a swimsuit for maximum exposure and desirability.
The fantasy woman/sports model possesses all the markers of female beauty in our culture. She has long hair (preferably blonde), large lips, and perfect skin. She is slender and has a flat stomach, which of course creates unreal beauty and fitness standards, which in turn fuels the sale of these exercise magazines. Our fantasy woman is shaved, tanned, and her skin glistens with oil or water from the swimming pool.
Similar to porn, the most important parts of her body are her butt and breasts. Her body is canted to facilitate good views of these parts. Again notice the similarity between the porn image and the ads. Despite the fact that breasts are mostly fat, and you loose fat when you work out, sports models still have prominent breasts generally due to breast implants. Champion capitalizes on womenıs fear of losing their breasts (hence their signifiers as women) if they exercise, with their "In Shape Sports Bra." "Only abs should be flat." Itıs a sports bra that "respects an defines our natural shape." Remember these are FEMALE athletes. Muscles transgress, breasts and butt reinscribe.
The models are toned to create nice lines but they are careful not to have muscles that are too large and masculine. Male signifiers are carefully juxtaposed using these female signifiers. A Metaform ad is an example of this. They juxtapose a small picture of Trisha Lane bareback riding with a larger glossy image of her in a lycra sports bra and shorts lifting small silver weights. All the signifiers of "true woman"' are there: diamond earrings, pretty face, glowing tanned skin, smaller muscles, flat stomach, and most importantly pronounced breasts.
As we can see, women in sports advertising are women first and athletes second. Gender hierarchy is maintained by muffling images of strong women, and reincoding them as sexy.