Sex Roles, Vol. 51, Nos. 11/12, December 2004 ( C© 2004)DOI: 10.1007/s11199-004-0720-3

Exclusionary Practices in Sport Journalism

Inge Claringbould,1,2,4 Annelies Knoppers,2 and Agnes Elling1,3

The relatively low percentage of women and minority sport journalists suggests dynamics ofexclusion. We used J. Acker’s (1990, 1992) theory about gender and organizations to examineseveral interrelated processes in the construction of gender and ethnicity in sport journalism.Acker named 4 processes that inform these constructions: division of labor, images and dis-courses, interactions, and identity work. We held semistructured interviews with 15 experi-enced journalists/editors who worked in the sport departments of either national newspapers,commercial television, or public television. The results indicate that, although the journalistsasserted that the meanings given to their ways of doing journalism are ideologically neutral,these 4 processes do construct gender and ethnicity in overlapping and interrelated ways. Inthe discussion, we place these results in their context and focus on this contradiction betweendesirable and actual neutrality.

KEY WORDS: gender; exclusionary practices; journalism; organization; sport.

In 1916, a young woman wrote to The New YorkSun to ask where she could go to learn how to bea woman reporter. In reply to the aspiring news-woman, a journalist identified only as Miss Gilbertinformed the young woman that “The School ofJournalism, Columbia University and at New YorkUniversity, is open to women as well as to men.” MissGilbert saw journalism as a calling that demanded aspecial type of person. “You can never ‘learn’ to bea woman reporter as you could learn dressmakingor stenography, because reporting is a type of workrequiring exceptional abilities,” she wrote. WhatMiss Gilbert did not tell the young seeker of careercounseling was that the Columbia University Grad-uate School of Journalism limited its enrollment ofwomen to 10% of the class, a quota that stayed inplace until the late 1960s (Lafky, 1993, p. 93).

Journalism as an occupation is a skewed pro-fession, that is, most journalists are White men.

1Mulier Institute, Den Bosch, The Netherlands.2Utrecht School of Governance and Organization Studies, Univer-sity of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

3Leisure Studies, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands.4To whom correspondence should be addressed at USG, Univer-sity of Utrecht, Bijlhouwerstraat 6, 3511 ZC Utrecht, The Nether-lands; e-mail: i.claringbould@usg.uu.nl.

Approximately one third of the journalists in theUSA and Europe are women (Deuze, 2000). Lafky(1993) has documented the status of women and eth-nic minorities in the journalistic workforce between1962 and 1992 and the barriers they experience. Thepercentage of journalists who are women increasedfrom 20 to 34% between 1971 and 1982 and changedlittle between 1982 and 1992; in the latter time pe-riod, the percentage of journalists who are ethnic mi-norities increased from 4 to 8% (Lafky, 1993). Cur-rently, 34% of the journalists in the Netherlands arewomen and 8% are ethnic minorities (Deuze, 2000).Female graduates currently outnumber male gradu-ates at the Dutch academy of journalism (CentraalBureau voor de Statistiek [CBS], 2002), and the per-centage of women among journalists with less than4 years experience is relatively high (45%).5 In otherwords, increasingly more women are entering thefield of journalism. It is surprising, therefore, thatthe percentage of women and ethnic minorities whowork in the sport media tends to be much smallerthan in other types of journalism. In the Netherlands,for example, women and ethnic minorities make up 7

5Currently no data are available on the number of ethnic minori-ties entering and graduating from schools of journalism.

709 0360-0025/04/1200-0709/0 C© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

710 Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling

and 1.6%, respectively, of the sport journalists.6 Thepercentage of ethnic minorities active in sport jour-nalism is not representative of the percentage (10%)of ethnic minorities living in the Netherlands (CBS,2002).7 The percentage of women in the Dutch sportmedia does not reflect the percentage of women inthe paid workforce, as a little more than one halfof Dutch women work more than 12 hr per week(Portegijs, Boelens, & Keuzenkamp, 2002). In otherwords, the profession of sport journalism is skewedfor reasons that may have more to do with the jobitself than with the diversification of the workforce.The purpose of the present study was to explore ex-planations used by sport journalists to explain thisskewness. Such explanations indicate how they con-struct gender and ethnicity and how together theseprocesses work to include some and exclude others.We first review the literature about gender and eth-nicity in sport journalism and explain the theoreti-cal perspectives we used in our study, followed by abrief account of the methodology. Subsequently wepresent and discuss our results.

The social skewness in the journalist professionhas been explained in several ways. Lafky (1993) at-tributed the skewness to exclusion from professionalnetworks. She found that women journalists have lessaccess to professional networking organizations thantheir male colleagues. As these networks tend to con-sist of White men, it is conceivable that ethnic minori-ties also have relatively little access to them (Deuze,2000). These networks serve as important sources forcareer enhancement and news. This means that thosewho are excluded from them may therefore alsobe excluded from making professional connectionsthat are necessary to do the required work. Exclu-sion of women and ethnic minorities from networksis not the only reason for this skewness in (sport)journalism; however, family responsibilities may alsoplay a role.

As is the practice in many organizations, thework of newspaper and television journalists hasbeen designed for those who have few, if any, child-rearing responsibilities (Lowes, 1999). It is not sur-prising then that most male journalists have a femalepartner who carries the larger share of the house-hold and child-rearing responsibilities. Women jour-nalists are more likely than men journalists to be

6This percentage is comparable to that in other Europeancountries.

7The term “ethnic minorities” refers to male and femalenonindigenous populations; it does not include refugee groups.

single, and they are less likely than men to havechildren (Lafky, 1993). Women journalists who dohave children and/or who have a partner who doesnot share equally in child rearing and household re-sponsibilities may, therefore, have difficulty in work-ing in this profession. Other explanations for theethnic and gender skewness in (sport) media de-partments include sexual and ethnic harassment bycolleagues, by supervisors, and by news sources.Together these explanations suggest that various so-cial forces may influence hiring and promotion prac-tices in the field and the choices that women andethnic minorities make to enter or leave sport jour-nalism as a profession.

Concerns about skewness in a profession oftenfocus more on employment statistics than on thebroader effects of the exclusion of women and eth-nic minorities. In contrast, Gist (1993) conductedresearch to explore effects of social skewness in me-dia organizations. She focused on the impact of jour-nalistic practices at three television stations, a radiostation, and a metropolitan daily newspaper on so-ciety at large and on those members of society forwhom power and access are traditionally marginal-ized. The results indicate that women and minori-ties are underrepresented as quoted sources in newsstories and that coverage of issues considered im-portant to them is minimal. In addition, the impactthat a “neutral” event, such as earthquakes, has onWhite people tends to dominate stories. Minoritiestend to be visible in the news primarily in nega-tive stories or in stereotypically positive ones, butnot in the many kinds of neutral or positive sto-ries in which Whites are typically featured. Gist notonly concluded that media coverage tends to be bi-ased, but she also linked this bias to the under-representation of women and ethnic minorities in thenewsrooms.

Journalists do not always see themselves as bi-ased, however. Sport journalists, for example, tend tosee their coverage as unbiased and objective. Knop-pers and Elling (2004) found that Dutch sport jour-nalists attribute the underrepresentation of womenathletes and their sports to the professional use of cri-teria of objectivity and human interest. They insistedthat the skewness in coverage has little to do with thegender and ethnicity of the journalists themselves. Inother words, according to them, skewness in cover-age is not related to skewness in the profession. Thiscausal relationship has not been fully explored, butthere is indirect evidence that their perceptions areinaccurate.

Exclusionary Practices 711

Sport plays an increasingly significant role inthe cultural history of Western nations, and it is re-ceiving increasingly more media attention (Coakley,2004). The number of sport broadcasting hours onDutch television, for example, has more than dou-bled, from 1,020 in the year 1990 to 2,673 in 1996(Index, 1998). Sixty-five percent of the adult Dutchpopulation watches sports programs on television orlistens to sports programs on the radio at least oncea month (Haan de & Breedveld, 2000). It is notsurprising, then, that the media are a commonly usedavenue through which people experience (profes-sional) sport. However, consumers of the sport mediareceive journalists’ interpretation of sporting events.A considerable amount of research has shown thatmost of the sport coverage is of White male ath-letes and their events (see for example, Duncan &Messner, 1998; Kinkema & Harris, 1998; Knoppers& Elling, 2001; Rowe, 1999). Although women andethnic minorities, like all tax paying citizens, con-tribute to the financing of Dutch public service televi-sion, White male journalists are usually the reporters,presenters, interviewers, and editors (Deuze, 2000;Knoppers & Elling, 2001, 2004). They decide whatthe audience sees or reads, what to portray as “nor-mal” or as common sense, which sports and athletesare seen as newsworthy, and which societal stereo-types are reinforced and challenged. As such, theinterests of women and ethnic minorities are oftennot represented, and coverage is stereotypically gen-dered and ethnicized/racialized. Gist (1993), who ex-plored connections between social group represen-tation at all levels in an organization to the accep-tance of meanings, argued that no medium is likelyto achieve objectivity in its product without broadrepresentation among its staff and its decision mak-ers. Thus, skewness in the gender and ethnic ratiosamong sport journalists may have a broad impact.Research that explores the dynamics of exclusionaryemployment practices in the sport media is, there-fore, increasingly important.

We used a social constructionist approach toexamine the ways in which sport journalists chal-lenge and justify this disproportional representationor skewness in their profession. We assume that theirexperiences with and reactions to skewness are in-formed by how they give meaning to activities, topeople, and to their own context. Acker (1990, 1992)has shown how organizations and their membersgive meaning to gender and ethnicity in four ways:through the division of labor; through the creationof images, through symbols and metaphors; through

interactions; and through identity work. These pro-cesses occur simultaneously and overlap. We brieflyexplain each of these below.

Division of Labor

Division of labor is an embedded organizationalpractice in which positions or jobs tend to be associ-ated with a specific group(s) of people. The selectionand hiring of individuals are based on gendered andethnic criteria that those doing the hiring associatewith those positions. Consequently, the same type ofperson tends to be hired (inclusionary practices) forspecific positions, and others are not considered (ex-clusionary practices). In most organizations, includ-ing those in (sport) journalism, White men tend to befound disproportionally in the top positions, whereaswomen and ethnic minorities tend to be found inpositions lower on the organizational ladder (Clar-ingbould & Van der Lippe, 2002). The perceptionsand ideas about sport, gender, and ethnicity of thosein higher positions often will carry more weight andtend to shape hiring and firing policies and organiza-tional culture more than those lower on the ladder.

Images and Discourses

Because divisions of labor can reinforce or chal-lenge dominant stereotypes, it impacts meaningsgiven to gender and ethnicity, and vice versa. For ex-ample, if sport is primarily associated with men, thenwomen may be seen as having inadequate knowl-edge about it to be sport announcers (Staurowsky& DiManno, 2002). Decision-making positions in thesport media are then likely to continue to be dom-inated by men who tend to use metaphors, images,and symbols that are closely allied with their gen-der (Knoppers & Anthonissen, 2001; Knoppers &Elling, 2004). Similarly, if the image of the head of asport department for a newspaper is White and male,then a Black woman may have a difficult time con-vincing prospective employers that she is qualifiedfor the job. These images pertain not only to posi-tions or jobs but also to those associated with an or-ganization. News organizations that pride themselveson their hard hitting and competitive journalism arelikely to hire primarily from the gender and ethnicgroup whose stereotypes fit that image. Obviously,then, meanings given to gender and ethnicity are re-produced through images, symbols, and metaphors

712 Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling

which are created by practices such as the divisionof labor, and vice versa (Acker, 1992). These images,metaphors, and symbols are not static, however, butare created, reinforced, and challenged by journaliststhrough their interactions.

Interactions

Organizations themselves are constructions ofmeanings, which are reflected and negotiated in in-teractions among organizational members (Acker,1992; Verweel, 2000). Meanings are produced bypeople who share experiences (being there whenthings happen). Organizational members create andrevise their meanings by talking with each otherabout these experiences. Although they share theseexperiences, they may not, however, agree on theinterpretations or meanings given to them. Somemeanings are considered to be more accurate, or tofit better, than others. These meanings become dom-inant and common sense, and, subsequently, are em-bedded in the structure and culture of organizations.The interactions of organizational members involveperceptions and interpretations of behavior and ex-periences in the context of implicit meanings givento gender and race/ethnicity. In addition, interactionsamong organizational members bear imprints of re-lations of power and of dominant cultural meanings.This interactive work requires individuals to createand maintain gender and ethnic identities that fittheir organization (Acker, 1992).

Identity Work

The fourth process that Acker (1992) describedpertains to the internal work that organizationalmembers do on their own gender and ethnic iden-tities. This identity work is never ending and isembedded in organizational practices and dis-courses. Their own social category (their gender,ethnicity, or age) determines in part how much workorganizational members must do to try to complywith organizational norms. Yet, as we have shownearlier, these norms are not gender or ethnicallyneutral, but tend to be connected to images anddiscourses about gender, ethnicity, and other socialrelations that, in turn, are related to the division oflabor. Women and ethnic minorities are not the onlyones engaged in identity work; however, White mendo it as well, although on the whole there tends to

be a better fit between their identity as White menand their jobs, as positions in general (and specif-ically in sport journalism) are usually constructedaccording to prevailing images about White men.When identity work becomes too demanding orwhen organizational members refuse to fit in, theymay leave or be marginalized. Thus the division oflabor, and the images and interactions that createand reinforce it, remain relatively unchanged. Littleis known, however, about how these processesactually work in sport departments of the media. Inthe present study, we, therefore, explored how thefour processes described by Acker may contribute toethnic and gender skewness in sport journalism as aprofession.

METHOD

This study is part of a 4-year (1996–1999) studyof sport media in which we looked at gender andrace/ethnic subtexts of the content of the sport media(phase I), the production process (phase II), andaudience interpretation (phase III). In the currentstudy (part of phase II), we explored the reasonssport journalists give for the underrepresentationof women and ethnic minority journalists. We heldsemistructured interviews with 15 experienced jour-nalists/editors who worked in the sports departmentsof either national newspapers, commercial television,or public television. Eight were reporters (three ofwhom worked for newspapers and five of whomworked for television), three were editors (two ofwhom worked for newspaper and one for television),and four were editors-in-chief of the sport depart-ment (two for television and two for newspapers).Ten of the 15 are men. All but one are White. Weobtained our journalists by first interviewing severalheads of sport departments in the sport media andasking for their recommendations. We also used thesnowball technique to find other journalists willing tobe interviewed. These journalists were asked to de-scribe the nature of their job and qualifications forit, to give an account of diversity of personnel withintheir own department and in their profession in gen-eral, and to explain why women and ethnic minori-ties are underrepresented in sport journalism (seealso Knoppers & Elling, 2004, for a more in-depthdescription of methods used).

We analyzed the interviews using an induc-tive approach to identify major themes and, sub-sequently, to search for corroborating evidence for

Exclusionary Practices 713

each theme. We then assigned each theme to one ofAcker’s four processes. As these processes overlap,we found that, technically, most themes could fit inmore than one process; we therefore assigned it tothe process it best illustrated.

There were almost no differences in viewpointsbetween journalists in newspapers and televisionand those working in commercial and public broad-casting. In addition, there were few gender differ-ences among men and women journalists. We in-dicate such gender differences in our analyses onlywhere they existed. Because the journalists as awhole had similar ideas and because they were se-nior journalists and, therefore, easily identifiable, wedo not identify the speakers. In addition, our datareflect the fact that the interviewed journalists havemuch more to say about the lack of women jour-nalists than about the underrepresentation of ethnicminorities.

RESULTS

Division of Labor

What meanings do these sport journalists as-cribe to the division of labor as it concerns genderand ethnic background, and why they do so? Thejournalists recognized that gender and ethnic ratiosare relatively skewed in sport journalism, and theyacknowledged differences in this area between theNetherlands and other European countries. A fewjournalists asserted that women’s authority in sportjournalism is more accepted outside of the Nether-lands than within. A journalist said:

We have several hostesses, a few female reporters,a few visual editors and producers. All excellentwomen, but no one has any power. That is the sit-uation in the Netherlands at the moment, and if youplace it in a wider perspective, you can see that thisis ridiculous. Even in Germany, France, Spain, andItaly, it is no big deal [for a sport journalist] to weara skirt and look like a woman. Here, this is a lib-eral and progressive society. But it’s only disguisedliberalism, and it has nothing to do with progressivepolicy.

The journalists mentioned different reasons forthis skewness. They argued that there are few qual-ified women and ethnic minorities who wish to besport journalists. They would be welcome, but theydo not exist. Our interviewees were against tak-ing gender and ethnicity into accountwhen hiring.

A journalist argued:

I will never accept a woman in any job, because sheis a woman. If she is better than other candidates,perfect. . . (I: and if the candidates are equally quali-fied?). There are never two people with equal quali-ties, that is nonsense; there are always differences.

Criteria for the selection of journalists areassumed to be based on years of education andexperience, and are thus seen as gender and eth-nically neutral. Ethnicity and gender of applicants,therefore, are assumed to play a negligible role in thehiring process. Journalists argued that more ethnicminorities are not hired because their writing abilityis inadequate. A journalist summed it up this way:“Language is the biggest barrier, and because jour-nalism consists of writing stories, that writing lackof competence must be eliminated first.” These jour-nalists admitted, however, that the hiring criteria arenot totally neutral. They suggested that women andethnic minorities need to have something extra, thatis, they not only have to be able to cover men’s sportsand to write well, but they must also have accesswhere White men might not. In other words, theymust have an added value. A journalist for example,suggested that the hiring of a sport journalist witha Surinam background might give the newspapergreater access to Surinam–Dutch soccer players thanwould a journalist without this background. Simi-larly, three other journalists described how womenjournalists could be asked to use their gender/looksto obtain information from male athletes.

Affirmative action programs are often imple-mented to reduce the division of labor in organiza-tions, but the interviewed journalists described theusefulness of affirmative action programs in contra-dictory terms. A journalist acknowledged: “Ethnicminorities are strongly underrepresented in sportjournalism. That is a universal problem. We havehad some of them as interns and occasionally onewho works here, but there is no policy that focuseson this.” These journalists attributed the skewness insport journalism in part to the absence of affirmativeaction programs. Yet they also argued that changeshould not be forced by policy. Some journalistswere against affirmative action programs becausethey saw them as compromising professionalism.Hiring and selection criteria were seen as neutral,objective, and fair. They said things like:

But to say that we need journalists of an ethnic mi-nority because they are present in and receive atten-tion in sport. . . . No, that’s not the way it works. It

714 Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling

is essential to me that someone is qualified for thejob. In that there should be no difference betweenmen and women. For example a soccer commen-tator must know what he [sic] is talking about. Awoman can do that also.

In our interviewees opinion, change shouldoccur naturally and not through specific recruitmentcampaigns or policies such as affirmative action.A journalist summed up the reasoning used by theinterviewees as follows: “You should not explicitlyrecruit women and ethnic minorities. An increase intheir participation will occur anyhow. People find itnormal [that they are sport journalists] and do notthink it is strange anymore.” In other words, theinterviewed journalists see sport journalism as anoccupation where everyone has an equal opportunityto be hired and to succeed as long as they meet thehiring and promotion criteria, which are assumed tobe neutral.

The structure of journalism work was also seenas contributing to the division of labor. Journalismwas described as a job that requires flexibility withrespect to time and number of working hours. Thejob often demands (immediate) availability in theevening or on Sundays. A journalist explained: “Ifyou work in sport journalism, it is obvious that youwork every weekend and many evenings. If you donot want that, you have to look for another job.” Thisstructure of irregular hours tends to conflict with de-mands of journalists in their home life. All togethersix journalists used this structure to explain the un-derrepresentation of women journalists. One of themsaid, while describing a woman’s career prospects:

I have never met a woman with kids who can coverthe Tour the France for 3 weeks. Being gone thatlong from your kids is not yet accepted in our soci-ety. Women still have to look after the kids.

The interviewed women were very aware of thepressures on women with children. A woman jour-nalist said about staying in this profession: “It de-pends if I want kids, it is such an irregular job thatit is almost impossible to combine.” It is interestingthat several of the interviewed men also wanted tohave more time for their families. A male journalistargued:

It becomes a different story if you have kids. I noticethat since I have a child who is one and a half yearsold. I have been a flexible employee for 20 years, butI can’t be like that anymore. Before [the birth of mychild], they could always call and ask me to comeand work.

The desire of men journalists to spend more timewith their families is, however, seen as a consequenceof their hard work and is rarely ascribed to their gen-der. Consequently, the structure of the work of jour-nalists is seen as incompatible with women’s (but notmen’s) parental work and responsibilities.

Images and Discourses of Sport JournalistsAbout Women and Ethnic Minorities

What are the image and discourse of sport jour-nalists about (the absence of) women and ethnicminorities in sport journalism? The data show thatthe images these journalists have of sport journalistsand journalism are not congruent with images theyhave of women and ethnic minorities. Their ideasabout sport journalism and coverage are character-ized by what they called professionalism and objec-tivity, which they saw as gender and ethnically neu-tral (see Knoppers & Elling, 2001, for details aboutselection procedures for sports coverage). Therefore,they think there are, and there should be, no differ-ences between the ways a man, a women, a Black, ora White journalist covers sports. The majority of themale interviewees claim that an increase in the num-ber of women and ethnic minority journalists, there-fore, would have no impact on the profession and onthe manner and content of sport coverage. Thus, anincrease is not needed. A journalist argued:

I think that male journalists write about women’ssports with as much dedication as women journalists.We should not distinguish between the sexes just aswe should not do that among ethnic groups. A jour-nalist who makes such distinctions does not belonghere. As journalists your job is to write about peoplein sport, and then it does not make any difference ifthat athlete is male or female.

At the same time, these journalists showed thattheir images of women and ethnic minorities are con-nected with their image of how the job should bedone. They said that a journalist has to be able andwilling to elbow to the front of the line. They thinkthat women who behave as “women” are too “nice”to do that. A journalist explained why a womanchanged from reporting to directing cameras:

She finally became an excellent director, but she wasso modest and shy, such a sweet girl. She will neverbe able to fight and elbow to the front in a groupof journalists. Imagine the kind of chaos in a cyclerace. There she stood shivering along the road withher notebook. It is her character, I know women whocan do the job. . . certainly.

Exclusionary Practices 715

The women and men journalists we intervieweddiffered in perspective on this point. As indicatedin a previous section, men professed to see every-one in a gender and ethnic-neutral way. Womenjournalists did not see these images as genderneutral. Women sport journalists who were inter-viewed would like to see a less male-dominatedand more neutral image of journalists; the major-ity of the women journalists were convinced thattheir presence can change images people have ofsport and athletes. In addition, they assumed thata decrease in occupational skewness would be ac-companied by a softening of the macho culture thatprevails in sport journalism. This wish for changeis, however, ambiguous. A woman journalist no-tice how the prevailing images and discourses in-fluence the way women adapt to sport journalism.One of the female journalists described this as fol-lows: “I notice that these few women that work insport journalism hesitate to raise women’s subjects.They are very critical toward their own products.You would have to be a Jeanne d’Arc.”

Women feel pressure to adapt the way the malemajority writes and they realize that a struggle (to bea Jeanne d’Arc) is needed to change the existing gen-dered image of professionalism and objectivity. Yet,although these women journalists assume that an in-crease in their number will influence the content ofthe coverage, most of them want to prove their pro-fessionalism by writing like the male majority. Thiswish or pressure to prove themselves can mean thatthe existing image of sport journalism will changeonly slightly with an increase in women and ethnicminorities.

Interactions Among Sport Journalists AboutGender and Ethnicity

How are meanings given to gender and ethnicitycreated in interactions? The answer to this questionagain shows the contradictions between discourseand daily practice. On the one hand, these journalistsargued that gender and ethnicity do not play a rolein the ways journalists interact. A journalist said: “Ofcourse men used to sit together and talk a lot aboutthings that did not have anything to do with their jobin the past. Now that happens no more than it hap-pens in other parts of society.”

Yet, although they argued that patterns ofinteractions have changed, they also gave explicitexamples of how gender and ethnicity structure daily

interactions. A woman journalist recounted howsome male journalists are so impressed when theyinterview a beautiful athlete, such as Kournikova,that it shapes how they interact with her: “They justlet her talk and were very polite. I think a womanwould have asked more pointed questions. Thosemen let her get away with it because she is a beautifulwoman.”

Similarly, the interviewed journalists, especiallythe women, described gender- and ethnic-related be-havioral norms. They described sport journalism asa profession built on macho behavior which is rein-forced by traditions of misogynist and racist jokes.Yet they also argued that the number of sexist jokeshas decreased because women have become part ofthe department. Some said it is mostly older journal-ists who “misbehave.”

Women journalists think their male colleagueshave a one-sided image of them. They think men’s re-actions are based on their being women rather thanjournalists. One of them said: “They think you getthe quotes because you are a beautiful woman, orthey ask me what to cook tonight.” To the women itseemed that their male colleagues prefer them to bedifferent, instead of working side by side with them.Yet their male colleagues argued that they do not seegender but treat everyone as an individual.

Identity Work

What are some of the consequences of divisionof labor, interactions, and images on identity workon the interviewed journalists? Most of the identitywork done by the White male journalists seems toconsist of showing that they are “neutral” journal-ists, whose gender and ethnicity do not affect howthey behave and work or how they construct hiringand firing criteria. In this sense they see themselvesas not having gender or ethnicity but as acting “nor-mally.” A journalist argued: “What really matters arethe kind of articles and interviews you make, you areonly judged by your performance.” They do, how-ever, see their women colleagues as using and beinginfluenced by gender. A male journalist said:

The English broadsheets will hire a photographymodel to talk to international [male] athletes if theythink they can get a story that way. In Italy, theywill hire women journalists to attract the male ath-letes. We stand outside the locker room waiting forquotes. When the male athletes come out, they oftengo to the female journalists. That irritates us.

716 Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling

It is interesting that these journalists assignedthe responsibility for this gendered practice towomen journalists and not to (male) employers whoassign such tasks to women or to the male athleteswho respond to women journalists in this manner. Atthe same time, this journalist also suggested that thistactic diminishes the professionalism of the work. Ifmore women (models) enter the job, this may meana devaluation of the work and thus of his sense ofa professional identity. In addition, although someWhite male journalists accused women journalists ofusing their femininity to obtain information, the pos-sibility that at times they themselves might be able toobtain information because they are men (and menare associated with sport) does not seem to occur tothem. They do not see the privileges they have asWhite men.

Women journalists saw themselves as havingadapted to sport journalism and said that they ac-cept unfriendly behavior toward their gender or eth-nic background by putting sexual and racial jokesinto perspective. They act as if such behavior doesnot bother them although they get tired of it. Thisseems to be an effective way for them to achieve ac-ceptance, although the same dominant macho culturestill prevails. Thus, they must work to adapt and to beaccepted.

Overall, the acceptance of these women journal-ists seems to be based on the extent to which theyadapt to dominant values. A journalist summarizedit as follows:

My impression is that female sport journalists do notfocus more on women’s sport [than men journalistsdo] because they are very eager to prove themselves.If you have a confident attitude, they accept you, butyou will be tested.

Professionalism is a quality to which the iden-tity of the journalist is subordinated. So women andethnic minorities have to do extra identity work toprove that their identity as women and/or ethnic mi-nority does not influence the way they do the job.Therefore, they work to conform to the way Whitemale journalists do their work. Yet, at the sametime, they have to behave according to dominantnotions of (White) femininity. A female journalistexplained how she feels about it: “It is better notto show strange behavior as a woman, such as be-ing drunk. Drunkenness by males is easily acceptedamong male journalists.” Women journalists believethat they must be circumspect in their behavior. Ifthey show their own identity and interests, they areseen as not fitting in.

DISCUSSION

The data indicate that exclusionary practices insport journalism are complex. Acker’s model showshow these exclusionary practices are layered and arenot related in a linear or hierarchical manner but areconflated with each other. Fig. 1 indicates how theseprocesses may work from the perspective of the in-dividual journalist. In this figure, the individual jour-nalist is situated in the middle of organizational pro-cesses. Interactions with others in the sport depart-ment give journalists information about images andvalues and about the type of person who is consid-ered to be competent for a specific job in the hier-archy. As we indicated earlier, these interactions areinformed by dominant meanings created in organiza-tional and professional contexts. These interactionsare guided by rules about who may speak, interrupt,and listen, whose questions and interpretations areperceived to be legitimate, and so forth (Verweel,2000). Because the percentage of ethnic minoritiesand women in organizations, especially in the higherpositions in news organizations, is much lower thanthat of White men, White men tend to have a greatersay in what is considered to be organizational com-mon sense. This exchange of information informs theimages individual journalists create about what is ex-pected from them and about what they can do inthe organization. In this way, they form perceptionsabout their opportunities and “fit” in the organiza-tion. This feeling of fit has an important influence onwhether one stays in the organization or professionor begins to look for another job.

Obviously, changing the gender and ethnicskewness in sport journalism is not a matter of simplyadding more women and ethnic minorities. Instead,as the application of Acker’s model to the inter-view data suggests, exclusionary practices are com-plex; change requires reconstruction of the meaningsgiven to gender and ethnicity. Each of the four pro-cesses has consequences for the others. Each pro-cess could be the center of the triangle as sketchedin Fig. 1. Through collegial interactions, journalistsreinforce the idea that the current division of labor isnatural and that change should also occur naturally.As a result, women and ethnic minorities continue tobe marginalized and either try to minimize their dif-ferences from the White male majority or decide towork in another area.

Our use of Acker’s model has focused primar-ily on the role journalists play in these processesthat result in inclusionary and exclusionary practices.

Exclusionary Practices 717

Fig. 1. Adaptation of Acker’s model of organizational processes.

Yet practices of inclusion and exclusion are notentities by themselves but are embedded in orga-nizational discourses. As the results indicate, theseprocesses are informed by an ideology of equal-ity that translates into a strategy of equal opportu-nity (Acker, 1990, 1992; Benschop, 1996; Benschop,Halsema, & Scheurs, 2001; Knoppers & Elling, 2004).The journalists we interviewed assumed that every-one is treated the same way and, therefore, has simi-lar opportunities for success. They saw themselves asbeing inclusionary, and they held women and ethnicminorities responsible for their own exclusion. Thegender and White ethnicity of male sport journalistsare assumed not to have any impact on the nature oftheir collegial interactions or on how they make de-cisions and do their work. We argue that this ideol-ogy of equality shapes the meanings journalists giveto the division of labor, the images they have of eth-nic majority and minority women and men, the waythey talk about (and with) them and their jobs, andthe ways in which the journalists do identity work.This ideology of neutrality and its concomitant be-lief in equal opportunity dominate not only the sportworld (see, for example, Coakley, 2004; Knoppers &Bouman, 1996, McKay, 1997), but also serve as a fre-quent explanation for the gender and ethnic skew-ness in other White male dominated occupations.Benschop (1996), who has used Acker’s model tostudy gender and occupations in the banking world,has drawn similar conclusions. The dominant beliefof the employees she interviewed was similar to thatof the journalists who participated in the currentstudy. Both groups believe that occupations should

not be and, therefore, are not gendered or ethnicized.This desirability is then “seen” as current reality.

We contend that this ideology may be especiallydominant in sport and in sport journalism. Sport per-formances are assumed to be objectively measuredand socially neutral. This assumption strengthens theperception of equal chances and opportunities forparticipants (Knoppers & Anthonissen, 2001). In ad-dition, objectivity is seen as the primary criterionthat ensures quality (sport) journalism (Knoppers &Elling, 2004; Lowes, 1999; Rowe, 1999; Tuchman,1971; Van Zoonen, 1998). Thus, a discourse of objec-tivity informs both sport and journalistic discourses.As sport journalists are involved with both sport andjournalism, it is not surprising that they see them-selves working and interacting with others in a gen-der and ethnically neutral manner. Martin (2003), inher discussion of talking and practicing gender in theworkplace, called this neutral self perception “limi-nal awareness.” It is men doing gender without beingconscious of doing so.

Liminal awareness allows men (and women, inother circumstances) to act as they please withoutbeing concerned about the effects of their behavioron others. . . . That is, if they believe their practicesare not gendered, they can honestly deny acting in agendered way, even if others experience them as do-ing so (Martin, 2003, p. 356). By seeing gender andethnicity as pertaining only to women and ethnic mi-norities, journalists (both men and women) can con-tinue to perpetuate practices that favor men and ex-clude women and ethnic minorities. Our data alsoshow how women and ethnic minorities do their best

718 Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling

to fit in and work like their (male) colleagues, there-fore, bringing in more women and ethnic minoritiesmay, by itself, do little to change gendered and ethnicorganizational processes.

Our results, however, are not straightforward,but show that these processes contain contradic-tions. Journalists argued on the one hand, that theysee themselves and their colleagues as individualswithout gender and ethnicity (liminal awareness)and, at the same time, they made distinctions on thebasis of gender and ethnicity of those individuals.For example, men do not see how they as men mayhave easier access to male athletes and may be takenmore seriously as sport journalists than women maybe, whereas they are angry when they perceive thatsome women sport journalists get interviews becauseof the way they look. Benschop et al. (2001), whofound similar contradictions in their study of thebanking world and the police force, argued that suchcontradictions can best be seen as ideological dilem-mas. They argued that, instead of trying to solve thecontradictory positions, researchers should explainthe dilemmas as being ideological. Presenting it as adilemma instead of trying to harmonize the resultswith each other can give insight into the ways thatorganizational members struggle to explain socialinequalities. Theories and strategies for changingoccupational skewness should, therefore, incorpo-rate the contradictory positions of the dilemma andtake into account the influence of processes suchas division of labor, interactions, identity work, anddominant images and discourses that inform who isselected and promoted.

REFERENCES

Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of genderedorganizations. Gender and Society, 4, 139–158.

Acker, J. (1992). Gendering organizational theory. In A. J.Mills & P. Tancred (Eds.), Gendering organizational analysis(pp. 248–262). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Benschop, Y. (1996). De mantel der gelijkheid: Gender in organ-isaties [The cloak of equality: Gender in organizations]. As-sen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum.

Benschop, Y. W. M., Halsema, L., & Schreurs, P. (2001). The di-vision of labour and inequalities between the sexes: An ide-ological dilemma. Gender, Work, and Organization, 8(1), 1–18.

Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. (2002). Retrieved July22, 2003 from http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/start.asp?lp=Search/Search.

Claringbould, I. E. C., & Van der Lippe, T. (2002). Vrouwen inleidinggevende posities [Women in executive positions]. Tijd-schrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken, 3, 257–268.

Coakley, J. (2004). Sport in society: Issues and controversies (8thed.). London: McGraw-Hill.

Deuze, M. (2000). Onderzoek journalistiek in Nederland [Re-search journalism in the Netherlands]. Retrieved October 22,2003 from http://users.fmg.uva.nl/mdeuze/publ14.htm.

Duncan, M., & Messner, M. (1998). Media images of gender andsport. In L. Wenner (Ed.), MediaSport (pp. 170–185). Lon-don: Routledge.

Gist, M. E. (1993). Through the looking glass. In P. J. Creedon(Ed.), Women in mass communication (pp. 104–117). London:Sage.

Haan de, J., & Breedveld, K. (2000). Trends en determinanten inde sport, eerste resultaten uit het AVO [Trends and determi-nants in sports, first result from the AVO]. Werkdocument 68.The Hague, The Netherlands: Uitgave SCP.

Index. (1998). Een potje kijksporten [Watching sport]. 10. TheHague, The Netherlands: Uitgave CBS.

Kinkema, K. & Harris, J. (1998). MediaSport studies: Key researchand emerging issues. In L. Wenner (Ed.), MediaSport (pp. 27–54). London: Routledge.

Knoppers, A., & Anthonissen, A. (2001). Meanings given to per-formance in Dutch sport organizations: Gender and ethnicsubtexts. Sociology of Sport Journal, 18, 303–317.

Knoppers, A., & Bouman Y. (1996). Trainers/coaches: een kwestievan kwaliteit? [Trainers/coaches: a matter of quality?]. Arn-hem, The Netherlands: NOC*NSF.

Knoppers, A., & Elling A. (2001). Gender, etniciteit en de sport-media: productieprocessen en publieksinterpretaties, [Gender,ethnicity and the sport media: Processes of production and in-terpretation]. Arnhem, The Netherlands: NOC*NSF.

Knoppers, A., & Elling, A. (2004). “We do not engage in promo-tional journalism”: Discursive strategies used by sport jour-nalists to describe the selection process. International Reviewof Sport Sociology, 39, 55–71.

Lafky, S. A. (1993). The progress of women and People of Color inthe U.S. journalistic workforce: A long, slow journey. In P. J.Creedon (Ed.), Women in mass communication (pp. 87–101).London: Sage.

Lowes, M. D. (1999). Inside the sports pages: Work routines,professional ideologies, and the manufacture of sport news.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Martin, P. Y. (2003) “Said and done” versus “saying and doing”:Gendering practices, practicing gender at work. Gender & So-ciety, 17, 342–366.

McKay, J. (1997). Managing gender. Albany, NY: State Universityof New York Press.

Rowe, D. (1999). Sport, culture and the media: The unruly trinity.Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Staurowsky, E. J., & DiManno J. (2002). Young women talkingsports and careers. Women’s Sport and Physical Activity Jour-nal, 11, 128–159.

Tuchman, G. (1971). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examina-tion of newsman’s notions of objectivity. American Journal ofSociology, 77, 4, 660–679.

Van Zoonen, L. (1998). A professional, unreliable, heroic mari-onette (M?F): Structure, agency, and subjectivity in contem-porary journalisms. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 1,123–143.

Verweel, P. (2000). Sense making in sport organizations. In A.Knoppers, (Ed.), The construction of meaning in sport orga-nizations: Management of diversity (pp. 11–23). Maastricht:Shaker Publishing BV.