Stereotypes in the Media

01/31/11 Tonights discussion was very interesting.  I liked how Dr. Everbach pointed out that the front page of the sports section was about women's basketball and that the Super Bowl had its own section.  This then ignited an even bigger conversation in which a male student kind of implied that a female sports reporter cannot do as good of a job as a man commentating... Really?  As an avid female sports fan I can say that I know quite bit about sports and sometimes I come across guys who don't know half of what I know.  I used to work in a bar and one guy I worked with would always get asked all the questions as to what games are on and who is playing by our customers ( probably because he is a guy and they probably thought I had no clue) and I must say he never knew and always came over and asked me.  Many times he had this look of surprise when I would tell him who was playing and that I had already set the TV to automatically change when the game started.  He even said to me once "How do you know this and I don't?" and he even asked my husband the same thing...My husband laughed and said "She knows her stuff, she likes sports."   Though when I came home and discussed the students opinion about not wanting to hear a female voice commentating during a game with my husband he agreed.  He admitted that there is one woman that does commentate on the early college football games and that he purposely does not watch it because he does not want to hear a woman's voice when he is watching the game.  Of course I said "Are you serious? What if it were me up there? You wouldn't watch it because it's a woman talking?" He tried to explain that the sound of a woman's voice is a distraction and when men watch sports they related that voice to that of their wife or girlfriend and they focus more on that than the actual game so they can't relax and enjoy the game.  I was not convinced by this excuse. It may be a "personal preference" but I think guys are just intimidated by women's knowledge of sports especially if they keep up with the men around them.