Women in Sports 5

This week, I decided to do a little experiment with Google.  Well, not so much of an experiment, but a Google search and seeing what came up.  I searched “female athletes” and this is what came up:

 

 

It starts out well with a Sports Illustrated link, “100 Greatest Female Athletes,” and then immediately goes south with the “News for Female Athletes” section.  The first headline under that is “Hottest Videos of Female Athletes Twerking.”  This is just a generic Google search.  I went onto another browser that doesn’t have any search history on it to try it again and the same exact results came up.  With as much as I Google about basketball, I am really surprised that not one thing about the NCAA women’s basketball tournament (which is arguably one of the biggest female sporting events of the year) did not show up once, even while the tournament this weekend is in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8.

This week, I read an excerpt called, “I’d Feel Ashamed:” Girls Bodies and Sports Participation. It deals with girls participation in P.E. class and the “male gaze.”  While I don’t really agree with parts of the article, that Google search I did reinforces that basic principle.  If some girl wanted to know more about women who play sports and found that Google search, I could see how that could be detrimental towards her.

Question of the week:

Have you been watching any of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament?