In my research I did not intially find a lot of articles on African American female sportscasters. I found it interesting that it wasn’t until I had typed in a detailed description in my search engine for articles to be brought up. I also noticed that the majority of these women were titled sideline reporters, which meant that they have yet to have the same success as white women have had of doing play-by-plays. Here is a list of black women sportscasters and their job descriptions.
Maria Taylor discusses being An African American Woman in her profession, and also gives advice to young women that want to be reporters in an interview video. It is nice insight from a black women who has overcome two obstacles in sportscasting, race and sexuality.
I also found an article, Media is ‘failing women’, that shared results of the number of men compared to women in this field. It addresses gender imbalances stating, “An ASNE newsroom census cited in the report showed that newsrooms were 63.1 percent male and 36.9 percent female in 1999. In 2012, those percentages were exactly the same. For 2013, it was actually worse: 63.7 percent male and 36.3 percent female.” Also discussed is the race discrimination, revealing that “90 percent of sports editors are white.”
Another topic mentioned in this article is the fact that the women who have made it in this career are harassed by articles labeled “hottest” and “sexiest” sports reporters. It is disgusting that women are used for their looks to broadcast on sidelines and are labeled “sideline barbies.” This causes women to fret over their looks in order to maintain a satisfying look for men in order to accomplish or keep their jobs. Below is a photo that I personally took. It is the result of simply searching female sportscasters in YouTube.
