Serving Equality

For instance, one might try a powerful serve, at 80% strength, wide, to push the opponent off the court and run to the net. Or, one might use a safer topspin serve to the opponent’s body to get the ball in play and build the point from then on, but risk that in the case of poor placement, the opponent might hit a return winner. The strategies are well-established, the returns can be anticipated, and yet each point requires the players to start all over again. There is no clock to indicate that the match is over. At any point, even when one only needs one more point to win, the tides can turn, and one can lose.

The title of our book, Serving Equality, draws on a sport metaphor to illustrate the media narratives of women’s sports and the range of possible responses and outcomes. We argue that various stakeholders participating in the networked media of the 2010s were “serving” a particular version of liberal feminism that rendered gender equality in women’s sports particularly visible. As with a serve in tennis, narratives of feminism in media can begin the process of a proverbial win toward a more equitable sporting space. We illustrate the ways in which some media narratives hit an “ace” (a serve winner) to sexism by calling it out over and over again to finally eliminate it from that “tournament.” We also know, however that sexism and misogyny return with new strategies and new tools in response to feminist efforts towards social change (Banet-Weiser, 2018). As in a tennis match, winning once against an opponent does not mean that the same game plan will work again. And yet with each point, players envision the game plan, make decisions based on their strengths, their level of comfort, skillset, which is to a great extent based on the structures within which the sport and athletes reside. Similarly, in networked media spaces we find articulations of feminism that in many ways resemble game plans of the past, yet shift or emerge in distinct forms within the contemporary socio-cultural environment.

While hegemonic masculinity undoubtedly prevails in sports media, Bruce (2016) argued that feminist sports media scholars ought to be “expanding their interpretive frameworks for making sense of media coverage” (p. 361). Similarly, in Serving Equality we argue that viewing sports media through the lens of hegemonic masculinity misses the important ways in which feminism shapes media narratives of women’s sport. Notably, positioning feminism in opposition to sports media reinforces the masculinist notions of sports and of sports media in ways that further marginalizes feminism.

Our intent in this book is to tell stories differently.

To return to our metaphor, “serving” in tennis can refer to the start of a collaborative process. In that way, the serve is an invitation to dialog and a start of a connection through which the players engage in a conversation, demonstrate the very best of their skillset, and ultimately become better players and better people as a result of the match. The possibility of articulating feminism within sports media holds the potential of envisioning ways to tell stories about women’s sports differently.

Articulations of feminism exist alongside sexism and misogyny, which are systemically supported through the legal, political, and social structures (Banet-Weiser, 2018). Sexism and misogyny, as they intersect with racism, ethnocentrism, homophobia, and ablism, are in the rules, the organizational structures, and the cultural norms that cultivate an environment in which feminism’s—and women’s sport’s—presence on the court is automatically perceived to be an “opponent,” an intruder. To use an example, which we discuss later in the book, when women win medals at the Olympics or get hired for a broadcasting position that was previously White male-dominated, the immediate reaction from the misogynist space of sport is to demean and undermine them simply because they dared to enter into that space, dared to step on the court.

How might we tell stories differently if an interaction between feminism and sports media was considered a collaborative process, one in which sports and media—as institutions—can advance, become better, become more inclusive, and ultimately become more just? And how might stories be told if the rules (i.e., laws), organizational structures (i.e., hiring practices), and referees (e.g., editors, producers, decision-makers) specifically centered women’s sport?

Our epistemological and methodological approach leads us to intentionally focus on networked media spaces that create visibility of feminism. We disrupt research (or academic) conceptualizations of “sports media” to look beyond the spaces that are typically centered in sports communication and sociology of sport research (including in our own previous work) to answer one central question: What does feminism in sports media look like?

Serving Equality documents the ways in which articulations of feminism in academic and media narratives converge, intersect, and circulate across stakeholders and networked media spaces to serve equality through news media coverage, athlete activism, sports organization’s initiatives, social media posts, ticket sales promotions, advertising campaigns, and film. We examine the relationship between academic feminist narratives, feminist advocacy and activism, and media narratives within the context of women’s sports.

While tennis is a game typically played between two individuals, the strategies are even more complicated in doubles, when the server has to take into account both their partner’s skills, position, and perspectives along with their opponents. A serve that might put the baseline player in an advantageous position, might make the doubles-partner at the net especially vulnerable. A well-planned out, coordinated strategy, on the other hand, can complement each players’ strengths and weaknesses in a way that results in a more comprehensive, more attentive, way of playing.

In Serving Equality, we illustrate the ways in which the equality-focused liberal feminist narratives of the 2010s failed to adjust from singles to doubles. In many cases, the sole focus on “equality” completely disregarded how intersecting forms of oppression are maintained. Drawing on Banet-Weiser (2018), we refer to this phenomenon as the asymmetrical visibility of feminisms whereby narratives of progress and narratives of failure rooted in liberal feminist goals became highly visible, while racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and especially disability rights were omitted. To disrupt the asymmetrical visibilities of feminisms, we also sought out spaces and particularly marginalized spaces that introduced a wider range of feminist critique.

We conclude the book with critical reflections on how a project that focuses on visibility inadvertently contributes to the further marginalization of feminisms that are not popular. We recognize that serving might take a different meaning in the context of volleyball, or in a newly emerging sport of teqball. We also recognize that serving is irrelevant in sports that do not require that step in order to start the game. Similarly, visibility might look differently in various contexts (see, for example, McClearen, 2021). In fact, our book examines media narratives in relation to a select few sports, mainly because these sports were most visible in the 2010s in the U.S. The analysis of our book is thus limited to the specific contexts in the purview of our framework.

Our title is an invitation to industry professionals, scholars, students, athletes, fans, and to you, the readers to “play tennis” with us, to engage in feminist theorizing about sport media with us—regardless of whether you have ever picked up the racket before, regardless of whether you have engaged with feminism before. We hope that this book is a valuable resource for cultivating a more just space for women’s sport.

We can’t control the wind, much like Venus Williams, but we can change the system. Venus Williams changed the system when she advocated for equal pay at Wimbledon (DuVernay, 2013)—an effort that often was lost or rendered invisible in media narratives about equal pay in tennis. Our book documents the many ways in which research, advocacy, and storytelling brought visibility to issues of gender equality in sports media. In documenting and critiquing visibilities, the book also sheds light on the possibility of telling stories about feminism and sports media differently.