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Policy: Recently, there has been considerable attention paid to
“stop and frisk” policies in NY in which police can question and
pat-down anyone in a public area that appears to be acting
suspiciously (e.g., teenagers hanging out near an ATM). Many
police officers note this leads to confiscation of myriad illegal
firearms and may be responsible for dramatic drops in violent
crime. Others argue it results in racial discrimination and
unacceptable infringement on civil liberty. What is your
opinion—should police be allowed to do this?
Maybe It's Not A "Generational Thing": Values and Beliefs of
Aspiring Sports Journalists About Race and Gender
Hardin, Marie; Whiteside, Erin. Media Report to Women36. 2
(Spring 2008): 8-15.
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Abstract (summary)
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Furthermore, research shows that U.S. sports journalists bring a
value system to the newsroom that leads to lopsided,
stereotypical coverage of women's sports; such attitudes include
the "commonsense" belief that women are naturally less
interested in competitive sports and less athletic, compared to
men (Hardin).
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Before the 2007 Women's Final Four basketball tournament,
high school and college journalism students gathered at a
symposium in Cleveland to hear reporters talk about their
careers in covering women's sports.
One student asked why women's sports, despite their explosive

growth since Title IX was signed, continue to occupy a lowly
place on newspaper sports pages. Mechelle Voepel, who covers
women's basketball for ESPN.com and the Kansas City Star,
answered for the group.
"It's not completely a male versus female thing," she told the
students. "It's a generational thing." Young men realize that
"both sexes can share" the playing fields and gym, she added - a
departure from the generation that currently occupies the
gatekeeping jobs at many media outlets.
"Hopefully," she added, "generational changes will change
attitudes."
This study considers this idea by exploring the attitudes and
values of future sports journalists in regard to the relationship
between sports, gender and race in U.S. culture.
Sports Media and White, Male Hegemony
Studies of mediated sports over the past several decades have
produced strong empirical evidence, without exception, that
sports are positioned as the purview of boys and men (Hardin,
2005; Pedersen, 2002). Although coverage has increased in
recent years, sports media generally exclude women from
coverage (Kane, Griffin, & Messner, 2002). Furthermore,
research shows that U.S. sports journalists bring a value system
to the newsroom that leads to lopsided, stereotypical coverage
of women's sports; such attitudes include the "commonsense"
belief that women are naturally less interested in competitive
sports and less athletic, compared to men (Hardin).
Sports media, racism and racial difference. Intertwined with
ideology about male athletic superiority is ideology that
espouses "natural" racial difference and "color blindness" to
reinforce white supremacy (Ferber, 2007). Coverage of athletes

of color, especially black athletes, has increased in recent years
as a result of racial integration of sports. However, sports
journalists still reinforce a racial dualism that positions black
athletes ultimately as inferior - they are "naturally" more
athletic than white, but they are also "naturally" less
hardworking and more apt toward moral lapses, for instance,
than whites (Rada & Wulfemeyer, 2005). (We use racial - black,
white - instead of ethnic - African- American,
CaucasianAmerican - descriptors. Ethnicity refers to shared
cultural and behavioral elements of a group; the notion of race
involves the categorization of individuals based on physical
characteristics such as skin color (Tidball & Hachtmann, 2004).
As Hall (2001, p. 388) states, more than ethnicity, race "remains
the potent descriptor in U.S. culture.")
Although overt racism in institutions such as the media has
essentially disappeared, Ferber (2007) argues that "new racism,"
integral to the institution of sports, relies on popular notions of
a "color-blind perspective." This perspective assumes that "the
playing field has been leveled; therefore, if anyone is not
successful, it is a result of his or her own poor choices" (Ferber,
p. 14).
Research has provided limited evidence that younger journalists
may deviate from sports department norms that extend these
ideologies. For instance, Hardin (2005) found that young sports
editors were less troubled by Title IX than were their older
counterparts. Pedersen and colleagues argue, however, that
changes will not occur naturally over time, but only through a
conscious re-education of sports journalists.
Gender Role Socialization of Youths
Although gender-role differences between males and females as
biological and "natural" exist in popular consciousness,
research has long demonstrated that many differences are

instead socially constructed (Bandura, 1986; Messner, 2002).
Although youths tend to make judgments about others based on
their adherence to gender roles, as they age, they become more
flexible in their views (Lobel et al., 2001).
Sports and gender roles. Beliefs about the gendered nature of
sports, taken for granted by many as a "fixed concept of the
natural," are tied to feminine and masculine identities and
gender relations within a given culture (Hargreaves, 1994, p.
31). For instance, research has demonstrated that individuals
generally categorize a sport as feminine or masculine based on
the level of contact (an indicator of masculinity) and aesthetic
elements (femininity). As Koivula (2001) points out, however,
these definitions are fluid, and given the discourse about a
progressive new generation of boys, there is reason to believe
that we may be in the midst of an evolution in terms of how
gender is culturally situated in sports. One indicator may be a
2005 survey of 773 college students that found that, although
most respondents were not familiar with Title IX, the majority
(80%) said they "strongly agreed" or "agreed" with the law's
extension of "equal opportunities for women and men students
in athletics" (Bates, 2005).
Attitudes toward race. A number of studies have examined the
attitudes and beliefs of adolescents and young adults in
relationship to racism and myths about racial difference. The
general consensus of this research is that racist stereotypes
persist. Kao (2000), for instance, found in focus groups and
interviews with teenagers that stereotypes positioning blacks as
athletic and whites as academic were prevalent. Another study
relating specifically to stereotypes surrounding sports, race and
ability found that college students relied on traditional
stereotypes of black and white athletes in evaluating the
performance of athletes (Stone, Perry, & Darley, 1997).
This Research

It seems, from an examination of the literature, that assumptions
about a "generational change" ushering enlightened views about
women, minorities and sports into newsrooms may be
premature. However, the influx of girls and women into sports
in recent years, the ever-so-slight increase in coverage of
women's sports, the indications that younger sports journalists
today do see Title IX differently from their older colleagues,
and the increased attention to racial stereotypes in sports
coverage among journalists themselves led us to our research
question: What are the attitudes and values, in relation to
sports, gender and race, of the next generation of television
commentators, writers and radio personalities? In relation to
that, we sought to understand their sex typing (or not) of sports,
their attitudes toward Title IX, their beliefs about the validity of
women's sports, and about race and racial issues in sports.
Method. We used focus groups with aspiring sports media
members to answer our research questions. Focus groups
examine how knowledge and ideas develop and operate within a
cultural context and allow for sharing of individual experiences
and making of "collective sense" by members of the group,
which we sought to explore (Kitzinger, 1999; Wilkinson, 2004).
Participants. Our participants were boys and girls who attended
a sports journalism summer workshop at a major United States
university. The students, ages 16-18, were from all over the
U.S. and defined themselves as aspiring sports media
professionals; many were covering sports for their high school
or local papers. All participants were Caucasian (white) and of
the 30 students who participated, only four were girls.
Focus Groups. Using an interview guide that was informed by
our research questions, we asked the participants a series of
non-directive questions (Wimmer & Dominick, 2000). Examples
included "Do you think girls' and women's sports should get as

much coverage as men's?" and "What do you know about Title
IX?" Although we used the same basic rundown of questions for
each session, follow-up questions were unique to specific
responses (Potter, 1996). The sessions lasted between 60 and 75
minutes.
Data Analysis. We conducted a formal analysis of the
transcripts using an iterative approach - that is, a recognition of
our own initial formulations about the research combined with
our desire for openness to everything the data had to offer
(Potter, 1996). Our analysis included the following steps:
identification of recurring ideas through a reading of the
transcripts, which we tagged with codes, followed by sorting
and grouping those codes into categories before returning to our
conceptual framework to arrive at our themes. The process was
non-linear as we continually returned to the data in an effort to
finalize the themes in the most parsimonious fashion possible
(Spencer, Ritchie, & O'Connor, 2003).
Findings
In our thematic analysis of the discourse we arrived at four
themes that were expressed almost unanimously by the
participants: sports as natural for boys and men; hegemonic
gender roles as natural; equal-access initiatives in sports as
disruptive to a natural order; and racial difference as real.
Sports as Natural for Boys and Men
The students saw girls and women as naturally less apt for
sports compared to boys and men. They used this ideology to
justify beliefs about reasons as to why women's sports aren't
popular, reasons women should not cover certain men's sports in
the media, and reasons Title IX is unfair.
Further, the students assumed a hegemonically masculine value

system in their description of what constitutes a worthy sport.
For instance, when describing NASCAR, one student said
"wrecks are great." Another explained that he would watch the
ESPN XGames if they featured more competitive races rather
than emphasizing aesthetics:
Participant: I think if they're racing, if they're actually
competing against one another where you can - where they
decide who the winner is, I'll watch it.
Interviewer: So is that important-the idea that it's got to be
head-to-head competition?
Participant: Yeah.
When citing examples in their discussion, the students all used
mainstream male athletes, suggesting their idea of an exemplary
athlete is a male football/ basketball/baseball player and further
illustrating the perceived natural pairing between sports and
men.
Said one of the girls who participated: "As a girl, I agree that I
think the sports are made more for men because it's more in
their nature to compete like that than it is for girls."
Participating in another group, the other female student said she
saw sports as a defining part of the male identity: "Men are
more physically inclined to play sports than women are, so let
them have that. That's what defines them, almost. Let them have
that - don't try to take that away from them. It's just not fair to
men."
In assuming women as less apt in sports than men, the students
believed this also translated into lower competence in covering
sports in the media. Many of the students flatly rejected the idea
of women in roles such as the color/analyst position in radio or
television - especially in the hyper-masculine domain of

football. Several said they could not imagine hearing a female
voiceover because a woman could not capture the drama or the
technical elements of the sport adequately.
Students said playing experience lent itself to better coverage,
even conceding that point for themselves when they had not
played organized football. Said one participant, "If you've never
played football, you're not gonna be a good football analyst."
Another chimed in:
Participant: I know a lot about it, but I've never played it
because I'm tiny.
Interviewer: So do you think, [name], that you should cover -
ever cover football?
Participant. Not in an analyst position, definitely not. But as
play-by-play, I think I could do that.
Low marketability of women's sports
Seeing girls and women as less able to compete translated into a
perception of a lower market potential and a negative outlook
on the future of mediated women's sports. One group discussed
coverage of women's professional football in the U.S., but
participants decided they would not cover it because it could
not draw fans, in their estimation. "I severely doubt many
people would tune in," said one participant. "No station's gonna
want to air that if nobody's going to watch it."
When asked why they believed women's sports have a low
market value, students reverted to earlier arguments about
natural aptitude. For instance, one said, "I think it's just because
of the contact. People don't want to see women in war, people
don't want to see women smacked around in the game... It just
seems like more of a man's thing."

Students framed these differences hierarchically, not only
devaluing sports that may cater to the strengths of the female
body, but discounting girls and women who participate in
popular, mainstream sports. Said one boy, "Nobody wants to
watch women's sports. ...They don't have the physical abilities
that men do."
An idea of women being less able, and therefore inferior,
solidified any lingering doubt about the possibility of women's
athletics garnering high ratings or demand from the public. Two
boys came to this conclusion after one student initially praised
women's tennis:
Participant 1: The only women's sport that I enjoy more than
men's is tennis, actually.
Interviewer: Why?
Participant 1; Because the men ...try to flamethrow it by you
150 miles an hour, and the women - it's kind of more about shot
placement and -
Participant 2: Isn't that the same thing, because in basketball it's
more about shot placement there and stuff like that -
Participant 1: Yeah, but I don't want to see that in basketball. I
want to see some guy jump 17 feet and put the ball between his
legs and throw it down.
Hegemonic Gender Roles as Natural
In the discussion, the students created a sport typology in which
they labeled certain sports as more appropriate for boys, girls or
both. Much of the rationale for this typology was based on
traditional ideas of gender. Students identified sports that

feature aggressiveness, strength and violence with men. If a
sport did not reflect these characteristics, it was not only
labeled a "female sport," but students questioned the
masculinity of male athletes involved.
Interviewer: What about figure skating?
Participant 1: Definitely the females.
Interviewer: Because?
Participant 1: It's just, it's like, graceful.
Participant 2: It's not that physical. It's just-it's grace.
Participant 1: 1 always get that feeling that the guys in there
just seem a little, you know, swaying the other way. They just
don't seem like most other men.
Students in one discussion were reluctant to admit they liked
and would consider playing boy's volleyball, a sport that is not
considered masculine by the traditional sport typology
definitions.
Participant 1: I'd like to see men's volleyball at schools. I'd
catch a lot of ridicule for that, but everybody's thought about it.
All my friends thought about it. If there was a men's volleyball
team, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
Participant 2: Our volleyball team's like-people don't look down
upon them-they're pretty good. They're great athletes.
Participant 3: 1 don't know why, but we kind of look down on
them in our school.
Interviewer: You look down on the guy's volleyball team?

Participant 3: Yeah, people do. I think it's fine.
The students expected male athletes to conform to a narrow
definition of masculinity and generally dismissed sports where
athletes do not reflect that definition either by the sheer nature
of the sport (noncontact, for example) or by a perceived non-
conformist culture within the sport. For instance, when talking
about his problem with soccer, one student said there were too
many "guys with pony tails." Another student dismissed men's
figure skating because it was not something "a manly man
would do."
Conversely, all agreed that figure skating was appropriate for
girls. Girls were seen as incompatible with physical, contact
sports such as football and basketball and instead better suited
for cheerleading, gymnastics, volleyball and softball. These
sports were seen as appropriate for girls and women. For
instance, said one participant about figure skating: "It's
graceful. Football isn't graceful. And it's the complete opposite.
It's beauty and how women are supposed to be looked at."
Equal-Access Initiatives in Sports as Disruptive to A Natural
Order
Title IX. About half the students who participated in the focus
groups were aware of Title IX; however, none were able to offer
a thorough and accurate definition of the law. In general, they
believed that the law was good in theory, but not practice. The
students recognized the value in a law that promotes equality
and fairness, but because of the ways they naturalized sports
with men, they were then unwilling to support the actual
changes Title IX aims to achieve because they saw those
changes as illogical and unnatural. Sometimes group members
would be "educated" about the law by others, as in this
discussion between three boys:

Interviewer: Any opinions on Title IX?
Participant 1: 1 think it's good.
Participant 2: 1 think it's a good idea, but I have heard of - I
can't think of specific examples, but boys teams that have been
penalized because there is not enough girl interest. That's not
fair at all. That's reverse discrimination. I'm all for girls being
able to play any sport they want. But if they don't want to play,
then why should the boys not be able to play?
Participant 3: That's totally not fair to them. It should be based
on interest and not what some organization says is correct.
Participant 1: 1 didn't realize they penalized the boys. If the
girls don't want to play then I don't think they should be
penalized.
Participant 2: Yeah, the concept is great, but it's not being
handled right.
Participant 3: ...It's too forced. It's good that they have it, but
it's like they're pushing something that doesn't really need to be
pushed as much as you think.
Affirmative Action. As with Title IX, most students expressed a
belief that any kind of affirmative action programs that address
equal access to opportunity for minorities are problematic
because they disrupt what is natural. They said they believe that
racism is generally absent or declining in sports, thus rendering
affirmative action initiatives as unnecessary because the climate
in sports is one in which people who work hard will achieve
their goals.
Participants in three of the four groups, without prompting,

brought up initiatives that encourage sports organizations to
interview minority coaching candidates; all responded
negatively. One student said:
That's not right because that's like saying you have to draft at
least one white player in the NBA, which, if you told most
teams that, they would laugh you out of the building. It's not
fair, even if it is a minority. They should have to get it for
themselves. We do not have to give it to them or else we'd have
to give whites another chance to play.
In a different group, a participant echoed that frustration and
emphasized the democratic, everyoneon-equal-footing ideal that
he believed exists in sports. "If a white coach is better than a
black coach, then a white coach is better than a black coach. It's
not just because the one coach is white and the one coach is
black."
Racial Difference as Real. The interviewer asked participants to
respond to the idea of "race, racism, and sports," and allowed
participants to take the conversation where they wished. After
addressing what they thought about the issue of racism (that it
was generally absent in U.S. sports), they then discussed what
they saw as racial differences among black and white athletes.
They generally saw blacks (males) as superior athletes and
whites as more intellectual, and saw this view as one that was
complimentary to blacks. The students justified their position of
black athletic superiority by alluding to the NBA, which
comprises mostly black players, and pointing out other
examples such as what they believed was the prevalence of
black athletes in certain sports or the success in golf by Tiger
Woods and tennis by Serena Williams.
At least one participant was aware of the controversy behind the
notion of black athletic superiority, but did not understand why:

Participant 1: 1 totally defend the Air Force [Academy] coach
when he said that comment on ESPN - when he said he needs
more black people. I am - I never thought, even though, yes, I'm
not African American, but I do not see that that was a bad
insult. That's actually like, praising them. Because he's saying
that they're good athletes. I think it could have been worded
better, though.
Participant 2: It could have been, but -
Participant 1: Yeah, you're right. You know, it just seems-
African Americans just-we white people-they-got-they just seem
like they have an edge.
Students speculated about what, exactly, gave black athletes an
edge. One girl mused that because many grow up in poverty,
they have "a chip on their shoulder" that spurs them to work
hard in sports. Others said sports is necessary to the black
culture for a way out of a difficult situation. One participant
said white youths in poverty may also have to, like blacks, look
to sports as salvation because "if you can't make it in sports per
se, then you aren't going to make it at all. You're going to be
working as the trash guy. That's just the hand you're dealt."
Others solved the mystery of black athletic superiority with
amateur biology. One boy said he believed that "their ankles are
thinner, and I think that helps them run faster. That probably
has something to do within Africa, they way they had to go hunt
and gather their food." In another group, a student asked: "Isn't
it like a medical thing that they might have an extra muscle in
their leg or something that helps them jump better?"
The biological superiority, however, was paired with cognitive
and moral inferiority to whites, as inferred by this participant:
I think white people play smarter and more as a team. I think

black people are more athletic but a little selfish, a little more
selfish. I remember when I played basketball, we played inner
city teams, and they were just as good as us but we smoked
them because they were all about playing one-on-one. They
were more worried about scoring 20 points than winning.
In general, the students articulated a narrow definition of sports
that preserves white, male hegemony. Women athletes were
seen as less apt and less able to compete in sports, therefore
also making them less competent to cover sports in media.
Students saw the sports /media complex as natural and were
troubled by legal and institutional efforts such as Title IX and
equal opportunity programs that challenge the social order.
Finally, students reinforced racist notions of a "color-blind
society" and reified racial difference. The beliefs, attitudes and
values we heard in these focus-group interviews all challenge
the notion that young people - a future generation of sports
journalists - will usher any type of new paradigm into sports
media production.
Discussion and Conclusions
As we expected based on the literature, the students we
interviewed clung to sex-typed notions of sports that have not
progressed much beyond findings of decades-old research. Their
sex-typing of sports involves placing sports in a hierarchy with
hegemonically masculine sports at the top and feminine sports
at the bottom is representative of what they see every day in
sports media.
We were surprised, however, at the vitriol leveled against
women's sports, although we know that adolescents strongly
cling to gender stereotypes and that sports remain a bastion of
virtually untouched male dominance in U.S. culture. We were
surprised because these students have grown up with the equal
sports opportunity for boys and girls afforded by Title IX and

with explosive participation in sports by their female
classmates. Even so, they made fun of women's sports and
female athletes who aspire to compete with men. When a
participant mentioned the famous Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs
match in 1973, he was corrected: "But Bobby Riggs was 75, so
it didn't really matter."
Although we found it regrettable that participants were
generally unfamiliar with Title IX, we were not surprised.
Prominent sports columnist Christine Brennan has asserted that
youths' lack of familiarity with Title IX is not necessarily a bad
thing; it may indicate that they've come to expect its guarantees
as a taken-for-granted right, and that marks progress in attitudes
toward women's sports (Brennan, 2007).
We are afraid that their lack of understanding about the law is
more than that, however. It is a misunderstanding. These
students saw the law as an attack on men's sports, a myth that
has been reinforced in news coverage. They saw the law as
"unfair" because, to them, it is attempting to change the natural
order. If these associations with Title IX persist, how safe is the
law? Title IX has consistently been under attack since it was
signed in 1972, and those attacks have not abated even three
decades after it was signed (Save Title IX, 2007). We cannot
help but speculate that the level of defensiveness and
disparagement of girls and women in sports by these boys
reflects their fear that they may not enjoy the same power and
privilege, in relation to women's status, as their fathers and
grandfathers (van Sterkenburg & Knoppers, 2004).
Their comments about equal-access policies in relationship to
sports and racial minorities may also reflect a fear that they also
will not enjoy the same power and privilege, in relationship to
people of color, as their fathers and grandfathers. Their
comments reflected a belief in a "color-blind society" that
Ferber (2007) argues is central to new racism. This "we've done

all we can" belief justifies maintenance of racial order, allowing
guilt-free perpetuation of the "good ol' (white) boys" network.
We also found it regrettable that myths about racial difference
persist. We found the speculation alarming because of the racist
assumptions behind mind (white) /body (black) dualism.
Research shows that one way racist assumptions by whites are
mitigated is through intergroup contact; that is, through
meaningful relationships with non-whites (McClelland &
Linnander, 2006). Students tend to racially segregate in school
and after school, and the opportunity for such relationships may
also be diminished in college, where most colleges are majority
white. The good news is, however, that even more important
than intergroup contact, "exposure to racial information is a far
more important factor" (McClelland & Linnander, p. 110). This
is not to say that college educators should not strive to racially
diversify their student bodies, but that they should not stop
there, but should create educational environments that challenge
racist ideas.
We concede that our findings are limited by both the size of this
project and by the method we chose to use. For instance, we
would have liked to have included more young women and
created at least one all-female group where girls could talk
freely without pressure from boys to say the (hegemonically)
"right" thing; in reviewing the transcripts, we noticed a couple
of instances where the lone female participant initially
presented a dissenting point of view (say, in support of Title
IX), but then joined in the dominant discourse when presented
with a counter argument. Of course, as we pointed out in the
findings, this also occasionally happened with boys, too.
However, our hunch, based on previous research (Harry, 1995),
is that female sports fans may have expressed views on women's
sports and Title IX that were more resistant to prevailing
ideology. We hope to explore this possibility in future research.

Research also tells us that the attitudes of high school students
in relationship to gender roles is likely to change as they
become young adults and attend college, and we hope this is the
case. Most enlightening would be a longitudinal study that
follows young people through college and into their careers,
gauging the ways they are socialized (or not) into dominant
ideologies regarding sports in collegiate newsrooms and
classrooms, for instance. Meanwhile, however, we encourage
college educators to consciously and carefully teach aspiring
sports journalists to resist the prevailing ideologies that
marginalize and stereotype women and minorities. We agree
with Pedersen and colleagues' assertion that such training is
critical if we are to truly challenge, and perhaps even dismantle,
the hegemony. Time alone, it seems, is not enough.
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Save Title IX (2007). Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http:// www
.savetitleix .org.
Spencer, L., Ritchie, J., & O'Connor, W. (2003). Analysis:
Practices, principles and practices. In J. Ritchie and J. Lewis
(Eds.), Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science
students and researchers (pp. 199-218). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Stone, J., Perry, Z., & Darley, J.M. (1997). "White men can't
jump": Evidence for the perceptual confirmation of racial
stereotypes following a basketball game. Basic and Applied
Social Psychology, 19, 291-306.
Tidball, G. & Hachtmann, F. (2004, August). Racial
representation and role depiction in magazine advertising: A
content analysis. Paper presented at annual meeting of the
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass

Communication, Toronto, Canada.
van Sterkenburg, J., & Knoppers, A. (2004). Dominant
discourses about race/ethnicity and gender in sport practice and
performance. International Review for the Sociology of Sport,
39, 301-321
Wilkinson S. (2004). Focus groups: A feminist method. In S.N.
Hesse-Biber & Yaiser, M.L. (Eds.), Feminist Perspectives on
Social Research (pp.271-295). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wimmer, R. D., & Dominick, J. R. (2000). Mass media research
(6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
AuthorAffiliation
By Marie Hardin and Erin Whiteside
Marie Hardin, associate professor of journalism at Penn State
University, is director of the university's Center for Editing
Excellence and is associate director of its Center for Sports
Journalism. Her research concentrates on diversity, ethics and
professional practices in sports media; her work has been
published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Sex
Roles, Mass Communication & Society, and Critical Studies in
Media Communication, among others. Hardin received her
Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Georgia. Before
completing her Ph.D., she worked as a newspaper reporter and
editor; she has also worked as a magazine writer. E-mail:
[email protected]
Erin Whiteside, Ph.D. student in the mass communication
program in Penn State's College of Communications, is a
research assistant in its Center for Sports Journalism. Her
research focuses on feminist media studies and media diversity.
Her research has appeared in Mass Communication & Society,
Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal and Visual

Communication Quarterly. Before entering the Ph.D. program,
Whiteside worked in sports communication for six years at the
professional and collegiate levels. E-mail: [email protected]
Word count: 5362
Copyright Communication Research Associates, Inc. Spring
2008
Indexing (details)
Cite
Subject Young adults;
Stereotypes;
College students;
Racial differences;
Sportswriters;
Secondary school students;
Sex roles;
Gender;
Race;
Sports;
Females;
Socialization;
Black athletes
Title Maybe It's Not A "Generational Thing": Values and
Beliefs of Aspiring Sports Journalists About Race and Gender
Author Hardin, Marie; Whiteside, Erin
Publication title Media Report to Women
Volume 36
Issue 2
Pages 8-15
Number of pages 8
Publication year 2008
Publication date Spring 2008
Year 2008
Section Research In Depth
Publisher Communication Research Associates, Inc.

Place of publication Silver Springs
Country of publication United States
Publication subject Communications, Women's Interests
ISSN 01459651
Source type Trade Journals
Language of publication English
Document type Feature
Document feature References
ProQuest document ID 210173220
Document URL
http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.e
zproxy.umuc.edu/docview/210173220?accountid=14580
Copyright Copyright Communication Research Associates, Inc.
Spring 2008
Last updated 2010-06-08
Database GenderWatch
"WELFARE QUEEN": THE ULTIMATE OXYMORON
The public identity of the "welfare queen" is the indigent
version of the Black matriarch controlling image (Collins,
1990:74), a dominant mother responsible for the moral
degeneracy of America (Amott, 1990; Collins, 1991; Lubiano,
1990; Mink, 1998; Murray, 1984). Wahneema Lubiano, a former
welfare recipient who is now professor of English and Afro-
American Studies at Duke University, gives the following
contemporary definition:
Within the terms specifically of, or influenced by, the Moynihan
Report and generally of the discourse on the "culture of
poverty," "welfare queen" is a phrase that describes economic
dependency -- the lack of a job and/or income (which equals
degeneracy in the United States); the presence of a child or
children with no father and/or husband (moral deviance); and
finally, a charge on the collective U.S. Treasury -- a human

debit. (Lubiano, 1992:337-338)
The public identity of the "welfare queen," as enumerated
above, crystallized into a political symbol during the Reagan
administration, when President Reagan, taking up the cause
once championed by Senator Russell Long (D-LA)(8),
lambasted them in speeches for living off the hard working
American taxpayers. The title "welfare queen," however, simply
gives a name to long-standing beliefs regarding single poor
African-American mothers' laziness and licentiousness.(9)
These longstanding beliefs, according to theorists, have
numerous effects. First, such beliefs contribute to the political
marginalization of single poor African-American mothers within
American political culture. Second, such beliefs are shared by
many in the African-American community, producing secondary
marginalization (Cohen, 1996) within African-American
political culture. Third, the use of the "welfare queen" public
identity as a proxy for all welfare recipients produces policy
solutions that are based on a misrepresentation of welfare
recipients and lead to a misdiagnosis of the problem. This
miscalculation logically limits the potential success of a
proposed solution. The next section of this paper explores the
last phenomenon through an analysis of elite dependence on this
public identity.
The public identity of the "welfare queen" is a constructed
identity designed for the explicit purpose of justifying specific
forms of public policy ideologically. The process of public
identity creation and dissemination, while subject to challenge
and intervention, is largely out of the hands of those who are
characterized by it.(10) The introduction of the term "welfare
queen" into the American lexicon serves a purpose similar to
the term "inner city;" it becomes a code word for a certain
"type" of individual with certain "pathological" behaviors
preventing them from sharing in the American dream. Thus the
public identity described here is a product of both stereotypes

(of the intersections of race, class and gender identity) and the
tendency towards individual-level explanations found more
broadly in American political culture. That the "welfare queen"
has a specific race in political discourse has been demonstrated
in earlier research (Gilens, 1995, 1996); in upcoming sections
of this paper I also account for class, gender and political
values such as individualism in this product of the political
culture.
While the term "welfare queen" is an explicitly political
creation, the cognitive structure it is intended to trigger stems
from a larger academic discourse dating to the work of
sociologists E. Franklin Frazier, Kenneth Clark and Oscar
Lewis, the coiner of a related term, "culture of poverty." The
transition from academic discourse to political discourse
occurred through the now well-known efforts of Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, author of The Negro Family: The Case for
National Action (1965), more commonly termed, The Moynihan
Report.(11)
Moynihan's work, while perhaps well-intentioned,(12)
exacerbated the impact of individual-level, behavioral
approaches to solving poverty, sparking a wide body of research
and policy analysis in this vein. Similarly, longstanding beliefs
about single poor Black women, including attribution to them of
lower morals and hyperfertility became guiding assumptions
underlying subsequent social science research (Collins,
1998a:101). The report played an important role in shaping the
debate both within and outside of the Black community.
In a curious mix of race, class, and gender politics, many
aspects of The Moynihan Report received the sotto voce
approval of civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King,
Jr. (SCLC), Roy Wilkins (NAACP), and Whitney Young (Urban
League).(13) Civil rights leaders, in keeping with the gender
norms of most Black churches, encouraged men to take their

rightful places as heads of households. In this sense, they tacitly
reinforced Moynihan's and Frazier's arguments that female-
headed households were countercultural and thus incompatible
with the American lifestyle. Combined with pre-existing gender
norms of African-American political culture, The Moynihan
Report further shaped Black attitudes towards single poor
African-American mothers, encouraging Black male chauvinism
(Giddings, 1984:329) and hardening the lines of demarcation
between the poorest African Americans and their more affluent
counterparts.
Another glaring example of secondary marginalization, defined
by Cohen as political isolation within a marginalized
community (1996), was the National Welfare Rights
Organization's (NWRO) utter lack of support from two
influential African-American institutions. During its ten-year
existence, the NWRO, a grassroots organization of single poor
African-American mothers, received virtually no financial
support from Black churches, the strongest independent
organizations within the African-American community during
the 1960s and 1970s (West, 1981). The NWRO also faced an
uphill baffle on Capitol Hill in its fight against a major piece of
legislation, the Family Assistance Plan (FAP).(14) The newly
formed Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) did not publicly
reject the Moynihan-designed FAP (presented by the Nixon
administration) or fight against it until the conference
committee met to iron out differences in Titles IV and V of the
act itself (West 1981, p.318). Anti-welfare attitudes in the
African-American community continued into the 1990s (Cose et
al., 1999; Kinder & Sanders, 1996).
While several prominent scholars generated voluminous
research to refute the findings of Moynihan, the emphasis on
individual-level explanations for Black poverty based on the
public identity of single poor African-American mothers
remained strong in both the American and African-American

political cultures.
Moynihan's role in the political sphere has contributed a great
deal to the persistence of the individual-level explanations for
persistent poverty.(15) Moynihan, considered a liberal
Democrat, contributed to the bipartisan consensus surrounding
the public identity of the "welfare queen" during his tenure in
the Nixon administration (West, 1981). Although ideologically
opposed to Moynihan, Charles Murray (1984) and Lawrence
Mead (1986) also predicate their work on the public identity of
the "welfare queen".
This anecdotal evidence portends broader assertions of
consensus among elites and dominant groups in the next section
of this paper. As the public identity of the "welfare queen" went
largely unchallenged, policy options remained focused on
individual behavior modification rather than structural changes,
largely due to another artifact of American political culture,
American individualism. The tone of calls for behavior
modification policies, however, shifted from earlier desires to
paternalistically socialize welfare mothers into American
middle-class values(16) to questions of deserving benefits.
Allegations of "rampant" fraud and abuse uncovered by a fourth
estate focused on investigative journalism following the
Watergate scandal contributed to the changing public
perceptions of the welfare rights movement. Requests for
benefits or changes in policies signified in citizens' minds that
recipients (and at times NWRO activists) were asking for more
than they deserved. Dandridge v. Williams (1970) gave judicial
force to the belief that public assistance is a privilege, not a
right. While some members of the media earnestly sought
answers to the age-old question of Black poverty, they, like
Moynihan, reinforced the public identity of the "welfare
queen."(17)
The contemporary findings regarding the outcomes of such

investigative attempts note that media reports use African
Americans 65% of the time as the face of poverty. Electronic
media use African-American images at an even higher rate, to
the point where they are used as proxies for each other in
coverage on an alarmingly frequent basis (Associated Press,
1997:A2; see also Soss, 1999 for the impact on welfare
recipients themselves). Similarly, in academic discourse the
"new racism" thesis asserts that as overt racism is less
acceptable in public, issues coded by race serve as a method for
American citizens to express racially conservative views. This
phenomenon has been found to affect welfare politics (Feldman
& Zaller, 1992; Gilens, 1995, 1996). Single poor Black mothers,
as the centerpieces of welfare discourse in the media and
academe, are cast at best as incompetent mothers struggling to
survive in a bewildering world. At worst, they are presumed to
be lazy, baby-making system abusers in violation of America's
most cherished political values.
The impact of the "welfare queen" public identity on political
culture has distinct political and policy ramifications. The
"welfare queen" is judged at all levels to be shirking her duty to
carry her part of the load as an American citizen. She usurps the
taxpayers' money, produces children who will do the same, and
emasculates the titular head of her household, the Black male.
In the language of the national family, she avoids contributing
her fair share to the national well-being, either as a "bearer of
American values" or as a contributor to the political economy of
the United States.(18) Particularly with regard to a language of
family that implies rights, obligations, and rules (Collins,
1998b:71), those who are presumed to be avoiding their
contributions are prevented from sharing in the complete spoils
of citizenship granted them via their location in the political
system.
A significant amount of anecdotal evidence presented here from
the media and academic discourses asserts that the public

identity of the "welfare queen" is single, Black, and female. The
influence of such an identity also undergirds recent findings
exploring White Americans' negative attitudes towards welfare
and their reliance on race as a factor (Gilens, 1995, 1996) and
also influences the negative attitudes of African-Americans
(Cose et al., 1999). In order to solidify my claim that this public
identity constitutes an underlying assumption of mainstream
contemporary welfare politics, I turn to the evidence of political
elites' reliance on the identity during public policy debates.
This week, these are the tasks you need to complete for the
week's assignments:
1. read chpt 5 in our Hunter text
2. read the articles on welfare queens, third world women, and
on the veil for Islamic women
3. View Videos from the Economist on women in other
countries
4. View the TED talk "The Danger of a Single Story"
HERE IS THE LINK FOR THE BOOK YOU NEED GO THERE
AND DOWNLOAD THE BOOK AND ANSWER!
http://rapidshare.com/files/4045469388/%5BHunter_College_W
omen's_Studies_Collective__%C3%9Clk%C3%BC(Bookos.org).
pdf
QUESTIONS! Provide answers with numbers in the front like
the questions.
1) After reading the chapter on diversity among women in our
Hunter text, please answer question 3 and 4 on page 163. Have
negative stereotypes of women affected you in any way in your

life?
2) Read the articles on "Welfare queens" and minority athletes
(Not a generational thing) that are posted in the RESERVED
READING section. Then write about what negative stereotypes
do you see at work, and how do they help reinforce the
dominant class's power? Do you feel there is resistance to these
images? What could be done to combat them?
3) After watching the videos on Islamic women and the burqua
and the veil what are some reasons for their wearing the
traditional costume? What do you think should be our attitude
towards wearing this traditional costume on US/European soil?
What factors have to be balanced while formulating a public
policy on it? LINKS FOR VIDEO HERE >>>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb5o2AHIxzI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu9AdvDaLmA
4) In this video, a Nigerian woman writer Chimamanda Adichie
talks about her life growing up and the lessons she learned
about diversity and finding her individual and cultural voice.
She warns if we hear only a single story about another person,
group or country, we risk not only misunderstanding the story
about also contributing to injustice and oppression. How does
her argument about the danger of a single story relate to the
view of feminism in our society? LINK FOR VDEO>>>
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/chimamanda_adichie_the_dan
ger_of_a_single_story.html

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