An important message for women everywhere.
The uphill battle for fair and equal coverage for women in sport in the media is one that has come under the spotlight even more this year thanks to a number of controversial interviews recently.
Most of us remember when Eugenie Bouchard stepped off the court at the Australian Open this year and the on-court interviewer asked her to give the crowd a twirl and talk about her outfit.
We kid you not.
Not long after that, Serena Williams was questioned as to why she wasn’t smiling by a reporter.
And thousands, upon thousands of times, vocabulary used to describe women in sport has been demeaning, patronising and has made our blood boil more than a little bit.
Now though, there’s a powerful new campaign that aims to reverse this trend, this differing attitude towards women in sport.
#CoverTheAthlete is demanding that media coverage focuses on the athlete and her performance – not her hair, not her clothes, not her body.
It aims to change the sexist commentary, inappropriate interview questions and the trivialization of women’s accomplishments in the sporting field that has become far too commonplace.
Questions that have been asked to female athletes have been used to make this powerful.
“These are not the actual responses of the athletes featured in these clips,” the description reads.
“These are comments or questions asked of female athletes that we’ve adapted to fit these new clips in order to show how ridiculous it is that female athletes are asked these questions.”
We think this is pretty brilliant.
Videos via YouTube/CoverTheAthlete/ABC News/Sports
