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African-American Women In The Sports Industry

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In a society that focuses solely on appearance and attractiveness, it can be detrimental to women’s self-esteem and their self-worth. As a young woman working towards my dream of obtaining a job in the sports industry, I know that I will be faced with some obstacles, mainly dealing with my appearance, “attractiveness”, and how it attracts customers. As an African-American woman, there has been a positive increase of African-American women in the sports industry. However, those that have made an impact in the industry are not praised for their work ethic and journalistic work, but their appearance as being physically fit with long hair and categorized as “hot”. On the other hand, other African-American women who work in the sports industry who do not …show more content…
However, with the hard work and dedication that each of these women has to report on any game on any given weekday or weekend. Each of these women are reduced to being recognized not as journalist, but put on lists such as “40 Hottest Female Reporters” for Men’s Magazine, and “Hottest Sports Reporters” for Ranker.com that diminishes the women’s creditability. According to co-authors Hahn and Cummins, they state, “highly attractive sportscasters will increase some aspect of creditability, but will overall be perceived as ‘less creditable’”(2014, p.38). Even though these women have worked hard for their positions, they are only creditable because of their attractiveness and ability to interview athletes, sadly, not because of the women’s knowledge of the sport or their journalism education. For young girls and women who look up to these women as sport television role models and realize that they are only recognized for their

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