Women are isolated in sports media, we need more allies for real and lasting change

On Thursday afternoon, two videos emerged that painted a bleak picture of the culture of sports media in Australia.

In sharp brush strokes, they illustrated a culture steeped in sexism, homophobia and racism. For many watching the story unfold, there was a feeling of deja vu, an uncomfortable and frustrating familiarity to the words and their purpose.

It may be easy, and even preferable, for some to dismiss these videos and the picture they paint as not reflective of a broader industry but rather the attitudes of one individual. Or even to diminish the language as «banter» — justifications we've heard many times before.

But it's incorrect and misguided to not see this behaviour as symptomatic of the ways in which women are othered and isolated in sports media.

Research into the demographics of sports journalism have consistently shown that sport, unlike so many other areas of life, has doggedly resisted embracing gender equity and continues to be a field dominated by men.

Last year, the Women's Leadership Institute Australia released the 2021 Women for Media Report. Prepared by Dr Jenna Price and Dr Blair Williams, the report analysed gender in Australian media and found that «sport is by far the most gendered of all topic areas».

The report found that men wrote 87 per cent of sport stories. Men are not only overwhelmingly writing the stories, they're also overwhelmingly quoted within those stories, with 84 per cent of quotes in sports journalism attributed to men.

In her 2017 book Breaking the Mould, sports journalist and documentary maker Angela Pippos wrote that: «When it comes to fairness, sport talks a hell of a good game—the trouble is, it only talks for half of the population.»

Women sports journalists have long been a