Joanna Schroeder explores the claim that female athletes are more likely to be objectified in photographs than male athletes.
There is a pretty brilliant article about women’s asses all over Facebook right now by a fella named Nate Jones from the news site Metro.
More specifically, it’s about the plethora of photographs featuring female beach volleyball players’ asses that can be found in Getty Images. The issue Jones raises is not over the fact that the photos include the player’s awesomely fit bottoms, it’s that the photos are of their awesomely fit bottoms. No faces, or even feet. Just booty.
Then Jones takes a bunch of photos of male athletes and does something clever to show us how ridiculous this whole thing is: he crops them so they’re just booty (and sausage) shots. You should see it, it’s really funny.
♦◊♦
But Jones doesn’t really get to the heart of the inequity. I mean, taking a photo of Kobe’s back side and cropping it so it’s just his ass doesn’t explain whether there actually are more disembodied ass shots of women, or whether the outfits on the women’s beach volleyball players are making simple descriptive photos seem sexualized.
My first argument to our Editor-in-Chief, Noah Brand (who sent me the article) was to say, “the only reason there are so many ass shots is because the articles are talking about the new changes in uniform! The photos make sense, they aren’t objectifying, because the body is the subject of the article.” In case you haven’t noticed, my modus operandi in writing about gender is to take whatever the feminists are saying and make an argument against it, just to see if the theory holds water. Most of the time I agree, sometimes I do not (See Melissa Stetten and Louis CK).
So, in a deeply unscientific manner, I conducted a personal experiment: I did a photo search in Google for “women’s Olympic beach volleyball photos” and came upon some ass-y shots. I mean, some seriously ass-y shots. And almost none of the connected articles mentioned the change in uniform…
♦◊♦
Most ass-only shots featured a favorite composition where the one teammate is giving play numbers to her partner. They do this behind their butts, so it make sense that the photograph would be ass-y, right?
Here are 2 of approximately 10 nearly identical photos I found (featuring a whole “Around the World in 80 Asses” array of different beautiful booties):
AP/Petr David Josek
Photo: AP/Dave Martin
So being as male volleyball players give the same signals to their partners, you’d think there would be some just like this, featuring men’s be-hinds, right? They just wouldn’t seem as salacious because there isn’t as much flesh showing with men in their volleyball uniforms of shorts and sleeveless tee shirts.
And yes, there are! Oh wait, I should say “Yes there IS!” because I could only find one butt-and-hands photo when I searched “Men’s Olympic beach volleyball photos”. Only one disembodied male volleyball ass photo! And it’s not even that exciting, because there isn’t a fleshy pair of cheeks hanging out. Just this Canadian dude’s hands. Nice as the hands are, even I prefer the top photos.
AP Photo/Dave Martin
But how about in men’s diving? Watching men’s water sports the last few days, I’ve been struck by how much flesh I’ve seen.
AP Photo/ Michael Sohn
That photo above leaves very little to the imagination, but they’re still not disembodied. That is to say, the fact that they’re nearly nude is secondary to the fact that they’re athletes doing something totally insanely amazing. And you can see their faces. If you followed the sport, you could probably identify who these two young men are.
I continued my search for disembodied male asses in major news stories… My next Google search entry: “Men’s Olympic Diving Butts”.
Here’s all I got:
AP Photo/ Sergey Ponomarev
That’s pretty graphic! But the guy STILL has an identity! What does it take to get a little equality in the photographic objectification department?
♦◊♦
After way too much time looking a photos of well-toned athletes I’m left with the realization that it’s true that in mainstream media we are way more likely to turn female athletes into disembodied flesh for our pleasure than we are with men’s. As much as women (and others) are falling over themselves over Ryan Lochte, (so much so that Jez’s Erin Gloria Ryan wrote an entire article about how despite his hotness, Lochte is apparently a fratty douchebag) the dude still gets to keep his face!
What do you guys think? Why the big difference in how women’s beach volleyball players are portrayed as opposed to men’s beach volleyball? Is it the fact that we see so much more flesh on the ladies and we’re simply drawn to it, as the human animals that we are (both men and women)? Does the half-naked ass make for a better photo than the entirely-clothed ass, artistically?
How about the swimmers and divers? How come they’re essentially never shown without faces?
Or are people simply making too much of a little cheek?
For more Olympics, check out Shawn Maxam’s Men of Color Challenging Olympic Stereotypes
Lead photo: Dave Martin/AP
About Joanna Schroeder
Dismembered men…
http://www.smh.com.au/olympics/cycling-london-2012/cyclists-face-off-in-battle-of-the-thunder-thighs-20120806-23ocs.html
Have you heard the phrase ‘the exception that proves the rule’? (It’s also worth noting that that picture was apparently taken by the athletes themselves, not by news photographers.)
… just one small step for mankind
I hate to be “that guy” here, but “the exception that proves the rule” does not mean what most people think that it means. It uses the word “prove” in a more archaic sense, which is “to test” or “to question,” and NOT the way that we use “prove” today to mean “to confirm.” It’s a very old English expression that originally meant the opposite of the way that it’s used today.
Exceptions do not actually confirm theories. They challenge them. That’s why the phrase never made sense to me until I found out its origins. It’s actually nonsensical when used in its present sense.
wellokaythen, I’ve always wondered about that. It’s truly a nonsensical phrase. Very informative!
Showing somewhat explicit views of women’s bodies in photos, video, advertisements and movies in a sexual manner has always been the way. It will always be this way whether we feel it is right or wrong. In fact I see more and more as I get older the types of nudity and near nudity I wouldn’t have seen when I was 15 yrs on TV in the middle of the day, in a groupon advertisement, victoria secret commercial, night time TV show overview etc. Somehow the men behind these cameras feel its appropriate to take these photos and the producers and editors approve them to get the ratings. No one cares about men’s rears, women are just not as interested in male nudity or body parts as men are with women’s flesh. Men are generally physical creatures and women’s bodies will be posted everywhere and every chance they get.
I just thought of what sounds like a silly question, but hear me out: why are the close-ups of butts considered less identifiable or more impersonal than full-body photos? Another way to put it: is an ass close-up really denying someone’s identity? Doesn’t everyone have a unique derriere?
Perhaps butts are less distinguishing than faces. But, when it comes to Olympic athletes, the people in the same sport start to all look alike to me, especially when they are all hairless and wearing the same swimsuit and same swimcap. I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference among all the water polo players, no matter how much full-body photo I saw.
I’m betting the real obsessive ass-shot fans could identify the players by glutes and fingers alone – “So-and-so has a wonky index finger and a mole on her right cheek, so that pic is obviously of her. Based on the skin tone, I’m guessing the photo was taken after a few weeks after her bad sunburn of July 15th in the qualifying trials.”
As an aside, I tend to see super-super-fit buns not so much as asses or butts, but as muscles. I don’t necessarily find fat-free rear ends sex objects, which is why I don’t see what the big deal is with volleyball bikinis. I find it much more erotic or prurient to see a little bit of fat. Otherwise, it’s really just a bump above the hamstring. Not all butt revealings are equally objectifying. Not all nudity is sexual. To each his own, I guess.
I suspect if women were on the whole less obsessed over how fat their butts look, less fretting about the size of their cabooses, this whole thing would blow over. If I was a member of a group so fraught over its asses and I had a small tight one, I’d show it to the world as well. I’d feel like I transcended petty neuroses, or feel like some sense of accomplishment.
First, even I get squirmy looking at those asses. Those asses are sexy as f**k. Saing they’re just muscle is like me saying a penis is just a urethra. I mean, come on now. Let’s be honest.
As far as identifying bodies, yes, their name, country or hair color or—I dont know—faces, might help identify them.
And if you’re studying asses so closely that you know who is who by the curve of the cheek, then I feel like there’s a whole other thing happening with you
Though the fingernails could be a giveaway. There are some awesome fingernails happening in some of them… Hmm maybe that’s why BV players like the nail art so much! A way for Poole to identify the ass shots!
So THAT’s where the urethra is….
No, it’s true about the butt-as-muscle, at least for me, at least sometimes. A really fit woman with very little body fat and tiny ass, which describes some but not all of the women beach volleyball players, does not really do it for me.
When it comes to inspiring erotic thoughts, a butt can actually be too small and too tight, no matter how much skin is showing. Probably too much information, but if a woman’s ass disappears when she bends at the waist, then it’s not really an ass, in my book. With some of those volleyball players, you only see a butt when they’re standing straight up.
I see a big difference between the butts in the first two photos and the third one (with the light blue watch and pink tape on her left thigh – see, I notice other stuff!). The third one has a little oomph that I just don’t see in the others. I don’t know, maybe I need to see a crease?
Don’t get me wrong, all the asses I’ve seen at the Olympics have been spectacular. Just because something is not immediately overwhelmingly sexy doesn’t mean that it’s ugly.
No doubt envy plays a role here. I wish I had an ass anywhere near that fit, so I get a little hate-y….
Haha. Well.
I agree the ass with the tape on it is the primo ass in this selection.
And now I need ass implants. Thanks a lot wellokaythen.
I really don’t understand why people would go under the knife to make their butts bigger. A few extra canolis a week does the trick for me…..
A few extra canoli would only give me a big belly.
I don’t have anything extra to add to the discussion, just wanted to say thanks for sharing. I enjoyed this post.
Thanks!!
Women swimmers are a lot more covered that women beach volleyballers. The latter should wear basketball shorts, thus stopping the frat boy perving and silly posts like the one above. Keep the focus on the game and the competition, and not on the sexual charms of the players. Case closed.
I made the point recently that a lot of the female track and field athletes wear almost as little as the Beach Volleyball players, yet seem to be objectified less and treated with more respect. Says a lot about the perception of the sport as well.
Wow. This is the dumbest post yet. Who is disrespecting these women? The only the I find disrespectful is people creating this stupid controversy, that’s what really takes away from the feats these women perform. I turned on Women’s Beach Volleyball for the bikinis, then stayed for the Volleyball. The bikinis drew me, the play kept me tuned in. I think the bikini is the best thing going for this sport, it draws a major sports demographic that wouldn’t normally tune in, I don’t understand how that’s a bad thing. And to the idiot who asked if volleyball was a sport, try it, it’s definitely a sport.
Oh. My daughter thought the bikinis were stupid, and I agreed.
Most of the athletes at this Olympics are women, and my guess is a larger percentage of the audience than ever — also women. In general we’re not showing up for bikinis.
Sand in the pants is annoying, that’s the most common reason I see them using bikinis so it doesn’t get caught under clothing.
There are more female athletes than male ones for the US. There are still substantially more male athletes in total at the 2012 games.
Regarding beach volleyball, swimwear is the uniform. Having lived on a beach in which there were tournaments (pro & amateur) every weekend from May to September, it’s all bikinis and board shorts during the summer. I’m actually a little surprised the men aren’t shirtless. I suppose the balmy London summer may result in someone slicing off a finger if it were to brush against a nipple. If you saw action on any of the particularly blustery days, especially from warm-weather nations, you’ll notice the female volleyballers wore both sleeves and long pants while competing.
Looks like you are. You tuned in just to leer. How respectful.
Tuned in to leer? I tuned in to take a look. I had no idea looking at a woman was disrespectful. I also mentioned I stayed and cheered them on for their outstanding athleticism. I can’t stand people who think they’re smarter than they are.
This is probably a silly question, but _so what_ if someone did leer at their butts via the TV set? How does that hurt anyone anywhere? Does the leering man’s eyes send out radiation through the TV set and into that woman’s body on the other side of the world?
I think the problem is that women’s sports shouldn’t need the bikinis to draw interest. According to you, if these women preferred to not wear bikinis, then people wouldn’t respect their accomplishments. It’s totally cool if they want to wear bikinis, and also cool if they don’t (and it’s okay for people to find them attractive), it just shouldn’t have any bearing on the respect they get as athletes.
Wait, what? How did you come to the conclusion that people wouldn’t respect their accomplishments if they didn’t wear bikinis? Please don’t put words in my mouth to bolster you’re own argument. The only thing I said was the bikinis caught my eye, then I said their level of play kept me tuned in, that’s all I said, anything else you extrapolate from that are assumptions and conjecture that have nothing to do with anything I said or thought. Now, I said I tuned in to take a look at the bikinis, but I may have stumbled across it anyway, because I watched the games where the women wore the full body suits as well. My point is, if wearing bikinis grows the sport, who cares why?
BV is the “sexy” sport in part because it’s been promoted that way. NBC is depending on that sex appeal to draw the eyeballs the advertisers signed on for. Track and (my favorite) diving display women’s bodies beautifully too, but in more limited ways that are not as obvious, so they’re not as promotable.
Here is a more scientific study of what seems a facet of the same phenomenon: http://scienceblog.com/55779/how-our-brains-see-men-as-people-and-women-as-body-parts/
While the article demonstrates that both men AND women are more likely to perceive women as body parts than men, it doesn’t really address whether it’s an ingrained characteristic of our psychology or whether people are somehow taught or reinforced over the years to do this.
So you’re saing that it’s ok to check out the guys’ pecs.abs. and ‘package’ as long as they show his face? And that it’s evil , creepy, male objectification if I look at a picture of a womans butt without looking at what, the back of her head? The hyprocrasy and double standard is mind boggeling!
Please read the article again and see if you still think that is my point.
And I want all of you to note that a few comments have been deleted because they violated policy.
While I don’t entirely agree with Bobbt’s take on your article, you do note the Jez article objectifying that one athlete without any judgement on them for doing so. Now I realize the crux of this article is in HOW women where allegedly objectified (clipping body parts), it does come off as taking a position of objectifying women is bad/disrespectful, but oh, did your check out the body on that guy cou cou.
alternately, you could get your mind out of the gutter and enjoy the games. I’d actually been more interested in how the shapes vary from sport to sport — those freakazoid 7′ giant-torso-small-head rubber bodies in swimming, the musclebound sprinters, the lanky long-jumpers, the rowers who looked like they did when Eakins painted them a hundred years ago.
I shudder to think what kind of physical condition most of the objectifiers are in.
I guess certain body types favour certain sports. Weightlifters are generally huugee, runners are sleaker, swimmers have huge upper body.
The fact is that even women look at other women in a way that most feminist would consider to be objectifying, there is a difference in how all of us (men & women) look at women & men period.
Feminists can try & deny differences between males & females so much so forgetting that reallity & nature is not necessarily politically correct.
it’s a whole lot more complicated then just patriarchy, Joanna
Hey, did I say “patriarchy”?
Don’t think I did. Thanks for trying, though.
Joanna, you made my point then there is no issue here about objectifying women since men & women compromise what we call media & consumers of the pictures of these athletes.
Huh?
Yes, everyone consumes the photos. There was not a single moment in anything I’ve written here that I blamed this situation on men.
I feel like you need to read my article again, please.
Another comparative approach could be to look at how sports photo editing handles the behind-the-back volleyball signals and how it handles the fingers-in-the-crotch signals of catchers in baseball. If the butt shots are all about the signals, then you’d expect somewhat equal treatment of all hand signals.
Here are some more disembodied male asses from Volleyball
http://summergames.ap.org/boston/content/london-olympics-beach-volleyball-men-40
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/02082012/5/photo/02082012124107.html
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/photos/olympics-decoding-beach-volleyball-s-hand-signals-slideshow/avp-tampa-bay-open-photo-1343754195.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/gallery/im:urn:newsml:sports.yahoo,lego:19780928:top,photo,4ce735c9-914f-38b5-90fb-cb5e41cb2dc3-l:1
And I have to wonder, how many disembodied female divers did you find? Comparing aples to oranges isn’t a fair comparison. There is a reason for the close ups in volleyball (the hand signals), there is no similar reason for such shots in diving, and I suspect you will not find any of ether sex.
“I continued my search for disembodied male asses in major news stories… ”
How many stories on men’s volleyball did you find in major news stories in comparison to the women’s? If you’re looking to an inequality in articles showing disembodied images, you should first make sure there isn’t an inequality in coverage in the first place.
“Does the half-naked ass make for a better photo than the entirely-clothed ass, artistically?”
Add skin tight vs baggy to the cloth that remains, and your answer is most certainly yes.
Seriously, Which of these shots is more asthetically pleasing to look at? The men’s or the woman’s?
“How about the swimmers and divers? How come they’re essentially never shown without faces?”
Because swimmers don’t give hand signals behind their backs that can benefit from a close up. I’m curious if there are any other sports that do these body part shots, or is it limited to volleyball only? If it’s limited to volleyball, then one needs to ask, why? Can it still be considered objectifying women if it isn’t done consistently through the sports, and has an actual reason behind it?
I’ll just add this to your list: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/hot-guys/guess-the-olympic-bulge?click=cos_latest#slide-5
Wow. I need to wonder what Joanna thinks now?
Dude, it’s Cosmo. Retch.
Women are animals. So are men. I guess all’s fair in love and war.
But between my examples (and comments) and that link, do you still feel women have been unfairly treated?
i did not read the other comments but wanted to say
that is s because women are objectified in parts chest butt legs etc
men are objectified period.
face hair eyes smile muscles height legs fitness butt and package
there will always be full shots of men doesn’t mean we r any less eye candy than the women
That’s a good point.
Men are objectified not just for their bodies, but for their height, skills and everything you can imagine.
Additionally, they are objectified for status and money.
Women are objectified for a couple of little things, and they start stamping their feet and making a big deal out of it.
When you take the AUDIENCE into account the pictures make total sense. Hardly any women are interested in close-up butt shots, but men are. On the contrary hardly any men are interested in shots of six-pack abs and bulging biceps, but women are.
I don’t believe any gender is over/under sexualized, I believe they BOTH are just in different ways…tailored to their expected audience.