Gender Essentialism and U.S. Attitudes Towards the Media Coverage of Women’s Sport

Abstract

This article examines public attitudes towards the media coverage of women’s sport in a context of recent growth but also continued inequality in both quantity and quality of coverage. Drawing from literature on the role of gender ideology in underpinning the unequal media treatment of women’s sport, we focus on ‘gender essentialist’ ideology as a predictor of attitudes. We draw on 2023 survey data from a national sample of U.S. adults ( N = 2032), with results showing that just under a third of respondents feel the amount of media coverage for women’s sport is ‘about right,’ while 25.6% feel it is ‘too much’ and 42.5% feel it is ‘too little.’ Gender essentialist views of women’s sport as lower quality and less entertaining than men’s sport are associated with the belief that women’s sport receives adequate or too much media coverage. Respondents with negative evaluations of the quality and entertainment value of women’s sports attribute increased media attention to social and political pressures rather than genuine demand and interest. Counterintuitively, however, we find that perceptions of women’s sports as higher quality or more entertaining than men’s sports are associated with the belief that women’s sports receive ‘far too much’ media coverage.