Gender equality gap in sports reporting shrinking: Report

New Delhi, Aug 24 (PTI) P V Sindhu and Sakshi Malik becamethe first Indian women athletes to "clinch" victories at tehrecently concluded Rio Olympics, while medals were "claimed"by men according to an analysis which indicates a narrowing ofthe gender equality gap in the reporting of sport. Researchers at Cambridge University Press have found thatmen’s sports received 20 per cent more air time than women’sduring the Rio Games – a "considerable stride" towardsstriking a balance in the reporting of sport for each gender. Using the Cambridge English Corpus (CEC) and the the SportCorpus – massive databases of written and spoken English – the research analyzes millions of words associated with men andwomen in Olympics 2016 to show an increased usage of thegender-neutral term ‘sportsperson.’ "The gender-neutral term ‘sportsperson’ was used with aconsiderably higher frequency during the Olympics incomparison to the language of sports more generally," thestudy said. Analysing the reporting by Indian media, it showed how menwere said to have "claimed" their medals while women like P VSindhu and Sakshi Malik had "clinched" their victories. "The manner in which these victories were reported in themedia highlights a notable difference as men were more likelyto ‘claim’ medals, suggesting a bold sense of entitlement. Onthe other hand, women were most likely to ‘clinch’ theirtitles, suggesting a fight for glory," the report said. While in the CEC the term ‘sportsman’ appears over 20times more frequently than ‘sportswoman’ or the gender neutral’sportsperson’, in the Olympic Corpus, ‘sportsperson’ isreferred to only 30 per cent difference less than ‘sportsman’. "We analysed a huge breadth of sources, putting us in aunique position to comment on the most significant words fromRio 2016 – whether this be the change in colour of the divingpool or seemingly sexist approach that still permeates thisglobal spectacle," Sarah Grieves, Language Researcher atCambridge University Press said. Grieves said that it was reassuring to see how theOlympics as a movement can help to encourage more equality insport, but also admitted the continued association of womenmore with aesthetics and men with sporting ability. The study noted how athletes themselves have been makingstrides towards generating fairer sports as was the case withBritish tennis player Andy Murray correcting an interviewer’s"inaccurate" reporting of his gold medals surpassing those ofSerena and Venus Williams. The study highlighted an association between the words’female’ and ‘first’ suggesting that Rio 2016 was an Olympicsof firsts for many female athletes, including Taekwondofighter Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin who made history by becomingthe first Iranian woman to ever win an Olympic medal. US Skeet shooter Kim Rhode also became the first femaleathlete to win an individual medal in six straight summerOlympic Games. PTI RJS TRS ANSANS