She shoots, she scores: Mediated constructions of contemporary female athletes in coverage of the 1999 US women's soccer team

The contemporary mediascape is populated as never before by scores of female athletes and women's sports teams. Because the mainstream media are notorious for their perpetuation of traditional gender roles, this raises interesting questions regarding how these women are represented in the media. In this essay, I assess the media coverage of the 1999 US women's soccer team; I argue that these athletes are gendered by the media via sexualizing strategies that are subtler and more sophisticated than those of years past. Accordingly, despite apparent progress represented by increasing numbers of female athletes, the hegemonic function of media coverage of them is even more profound today than it has been historically.