CSUN On Point

More women are participating in sports today, from youth to pro athletics, but you wouldn’t exactly know that by watching television. A USC study shows that in 1989, five percent of television news media covered female athletics, but in 2014 the percentage had decreased to three percent, and the representation of women in sports media lacks substance as well.

“The number of girls or women [who are] participating in sports in the United States is some 40 percent,” said CSUN Professor of Kinesiology Chris Bolsmann, “so if we’ve got only four percent coverage, for me it suggests what is taking place is just a replication of inequality within society. Sport is an interesting vehicle or lense to look at society. If we look at the patriarchal nature of our society, and more recently the misogynistic nature of our society, that is a reflection of that more generally.”

Title IX is the federal law within the Education Act of 1972 that gave way for equal opportunity, protection from discrimination based on sex, and protection of benefits based on sex. Since its passage, the United States has seen a rapid increase in women’s participation in sports. That increase in women’s participation in sports, from the youth level to pro, hasn’t led to an increase in women’s sports coverage, but it has been extremely beneficial for giving opportunities to women within athletics within the last 40 years.

“Sometimes change requires law, and sometimes change requires some enforcement,” said CSUN’s Associate Athletics Director of Marketing Dawn Ellerbe,” because even now, in 2016, every university, high school, and junior high hasn’t embraced the equal play for women. Without [Title IX], I don’t think we would have seen the rise in women’s sports.”

 The future of women’s sports might very well be the inclusion and integration of the best women within athletics competing with and against men. From real life representations like Little League World Series sensation Mo’ne Davis, to dramatized versions for Hollywood like Fox’s Pitch, maybe more and more women within predominantly male sports will become more accepted.

“The question we should possibly be asking is, ‘Why do we have gendered sports in the first place?’” Bolsmann asked. “Should we not be talking about having not-gendered sports, so if somebody is good enough, without respect to if they are male or female, they can play on a team? If we have a level playing field of some sorts and open it up to competition on the basis of being a human, rather than being a man or a women, we could move into some interesting spaces and interesting discussions more generally.”

Moderator: Alicia Dieguez

Producer: Susana Guzman

Anchor: Jackie Wawee

Social Media Editor: Nick Torres

Reporters:  Alicia Dieguez, Thomas Gallegos, Susana Guzman, Ebony Hardiman, Ke-Alani Sarmiento, Nick Torres and Jackie Wawee

Recently, social media have started setting a high beauty standard for both men and women.

Billions of dollars are spent annually on beauty products in this country, and a  study done by a British makeup company found that 68 percent of employers say they would not want to hire women who don’t wear make up.

“One’s sense of self-esteem is hit hard when one feels as though he or she doesn’t measure up to the classic image of the media,” psychologist Yvonne Thomas said.

“The media’s job is to tell a story, ” said Gender and Women’s Studies Professor Shira Brown, Director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center. “The story being told portrays a false sense of image for the average person, especially young boys and girls, whether it’s on television, magazines or the radio…Unfortunately the story being told is [of] a particular body or hair type, which puts pressure on society’s body image.”

The Internet has become the go-to way for finding information. Many people go online to do research about health and beauty, and find the same unrealistic standards of beauty there that they would in traditional media. Experts said those standards have an impact on individuals.

“I got a lot of doors shut on me, and that really actually lowered my self-esteem and I did get anorexia,” said social media model Magi Tcherno. She said she didn’t feel beautiful until she under went a breast augmentation. Tcherno jumpstarted her own modeling career by representing herself online after she was rejected by modeling agencies who told her she wasn’t good enough. It was at that point, she said, that she became more determined and developed the self-confidence to build her own modeling career.

Dove, a personal care products manufacturer owned by Unilever, has built a marketing strategy around increased self-esteem for men and women, partly by showing many different body types and standards in their advertising.

“I believe that good things come when you show diversity in body type; good things come when you show diversity in skin color and height,” Brown said.

Moderator: Delmy Moran

Anchor: Brittni Perez

Producer: Celene Zavala

Social Media Editors:  Jordan Williams

Reporters: Delmy Moran, Brittni Perez, Kiesha Phillips, Daniel Saad, Jordan Williams and Celene Zavala

Recently, incidents of police officers shooting and killing African-Americans have gained more attention in the media.

A new study shows a relationship between racial bias and the police use of excessive force against people of color. The study found that police are more likely to use handcuffs, draw their weapons, and use pepper spray or their baton when dealing with people of color.

New technology such as body cameras and smartphones mean more and more officer-involved shootings are being recorded and posted on social media by witnesses. Although police brutality is not a new phenomenon, the coverage by both professional and citizen journalists has made it more prominent. Some hope this coverage will help lessen the violence, but others in the African-American community question the effectiveness of body cams.

“I don’t think it’ll make a difference,” screenwriter and actor Kyle Smith said. “Cops are killing innocent blacks on camera, and getting away with it.”

The Washington Post reports that 991 people were shot by police officers in 2015, but according to data collected by an Ohio researcher, only 26 officers have been convicted of murder or manslaughter.

“As of right now [the new technology] is not working, because even when they’re catching these assassinations and murders on camera, nothing is happening to the cops,” CSUN Africana Studies Professor Aimee Glocke said.

The problem now may be whether or not the media are accurately reporting and portraying these situations, and whether their coverage could actually be helping to perpetuate the violence.

In the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, #BlackLivesMatter arose as a popular hashtag on Twitter to protest the violence that plagued the African American community. Soon the hashtag evolved into an organization geared toward ending the injustice of police brutality. But the attacks on the community have not stopped, and some feel the community and individuals continue to be targeted due to racism and unconscious bias.

“My interaction with the police has absolutely 100 percent always been different from my peers around me,” CSUN’s Black Student Union President Robert T. Wilson III said. “Personally, it would be nice to not have to feel scared; it would be nice to not feel nervous when interacting with the police, and I could be held accountable [only] for the things I do, or the things I do not do.”

The shootings of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, and Michael Brown in Missouri in 2014, generated an emotional response because they were young men, both under the age of 18.

“I’m a black mother of a 33-year-old black male and I’m constantly holding my breath,” CSUN Africana Studies Professor Monica Turner said. “There’re no words to describe that kind of torment: when you think about a child that you have loved and nurtured and cared for, [and] someone shooting them down like an animal in cold blood. There’s nothing to describe what that feels like. I really feel terrorized.”

Many politicians and law enforcement experts are calling for a closer examination of police training methods.

“’Just being black’: most police officers will say that’s a reason for excessive force,” Glocke said. “I know there’s a standard, and there’s supposed to be this whole judgement of when you use force, [but] many police officers don’t care. They will shoot first, and ask questions later.”

To view the complete interview with Robert Wilson III, President of the Black Student Union at CSUN, please click here.

Moderator: Thomas Gallegos

Anchor: Ke-Alani Sarmiento

Producer: Alicia Dieguez

Social Media Editors: Nick Torres and Jackie Wawee

Reporters: Alicia Dieguez, Thomas Gallegos, Susana Guzman, Ebony Hardiman, Ke-Alani Sarmiento, Nick Torres and Jackie Wawee

Many toy stores and manufacturers divide their merchandise by color and gender. Typically, toys for girls are associated with the color pink, and toys for boys with the color blue. However, some stores this holiday season have announced they are doing away with gender segregation when it comes to toys. And Mattel has released a Barbie doll commercial featuring a boy playing with the doll.

The traditional separation of toys and colors according to gender is not a natural phenomenon, according to CSUN Sociology Professor Dr. Amy Denissen.

“Something like wanting to play with a particular toy — we have really good research that demonstrates that that is something that is socially learned,” she said. “It is not an innate trait or interest that we’re born with, but it’s something that children learn.”

Communications Professor Dr. John Kephart III said these toys, and the expectations that go with them, can affect people into adulthood. Kephart said boys are expected to play competitive sports or games like ‘cops and robbers’, which condition their mind to accomplish set goals. On the other hand, girls play games such as ‘tea party’ or ‘house’, which encourage communication and nurturing. Kephart said this might be one reason why about 50 percent of women who enter into the male-dominated field of technology tend to leave, citing a hostile work environment as the reason. “And so women are tracked into [technology fields] less often in their education; they’re hired less for it structurally; and they feel less comfortable and able to communicate with coworkers once they are there,” Kephart said.

Women who exhibit the so-called masculine behaviors valued in the workplace are stigmatized and sanctioned as being ‘bossy’, rather than becoming the leaders men do when they exhibit the same behavior, Denissen said.

“It’s equally concerning that young boys aren’t encouraged to be emotional,” Kephart said, “or encouraged to show a softer side, or think that they have to compete, or be assertive and to dominate other men and women in order to succeed.”

“I think it would be good for boys to be encouraged to play with dolls,” Gender and Women Studies Professor Dr. Kristyan Kouri said. “It would develop their nurturing skills. When they grow up to be fathers, they will take a more active role in nurturing their children. And girls need to develop those visual spatial skills that things like Legos, Lincoln Logs, and Bionicals teach them as they are building them, and that will maybe be a small step in helping them move into fields like engineering, which is still a male dominated occupation.”

“It’s not that we will be able to get rid of gender,” Kephart said. “But instead [we should] stop saying ‘this gender is better than this gender’, or ‘this sex has to perform this gendered behavior or this gendered role’.”

“Difference isn’t the problem,” Denissen said. “It’s when difference is transformed into distinction, which is when we use difference to create hierarchies, when we use difference to say that one group is superior to or better than another group [that’s the problem]. And I think gender is one of these differences that we’ve created, that is used to create distinctions to say that one group is better than the other.”

“We need to make gender roles more flexible,” Kouri said. “You can be male or female by not conforming to these rigid notions of what a male and female should be, or also maybe creating other genders.”

Moderator: Stephanie Lopez

Anchor: Sara Vong

Producer: Teresa Barrientos

Reporters: Teresa Barrientos, James Lindsay, Stephanie Lopez, Veronica Perez, Sara Vong

Social Media Editors: Veronica Perez and Sara Vong

Black Lives Matter is a movement which began two years ago, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of the charges against him during the Trayvon Martin murder trial. CSUN was the site of a Black Lives Matters event recently, organized to bring awareness to students about the issues surrounding the cause.

One of the goals of the event was to teach students about what they can do to make a difference. Workshops were held so that students could learn how to become involved in the movement.

“The beautiful thing is, when we teach these things to students, then [they] get a foundation and they can use that foundation to move forward and help Black Lives Matter,” said Dr. Aimee Glocke said, a professor in CSUN’s Department of Africana Studies.

Some have questioned whether BLM’s decision to forego a traditional hierarchy and go without an appointed leader might limit the group’s ability to spread its message and accomplish its goals.

“I feel like that’s a phenomenal way to go,” Glocke said, “because then the idea is that there is a collective voice. There are different perspectives in it, and that includes same gender loving lives [and] black [transgender] individuals who have been murdered by the police…This is a leader-full movement, [and] this gives [it] an advantage, because it includes so many different black people in different walks of life.”

Another response has been to the name of the movement, and expression of the opinion that BLM should be focused on ‘all lives matter’, so it encompasses all ethnic backgrounds, but supporters of the BLM movement say this change would take away from the real problem.

Wesley Williams, the president of CSUN’s Black Male Initiative Organization, explained why the name Black Lives Matter is so important.

“It’s like there are two houses,” Williams said. “A perfectly standing [home] and a burning home….Because all houses matter, we’re going to water down this perfectly fine house while the other one burns. Even though one needs [the water] more than the other.”

“We’re getting murdered; we’re having the trouble with the police,” Williams said. “And other races aren’t being affected by it this dramatically.”

Another problem Black Lives Matter addresses is the media’s often unfair and selective view of Black America.

“The media embraces white supremacy and racism, so how can we ever expect them to give [this movement] a fair portrayal?” Glocke asked.

Glocke said the news media can manipulate the audience by showing only black violence, and almost none of the progressive work that is being done.

“How many news stations showed [the recent Million Man March]?” Glocke asked. “ The idea is here [was] a peaceful, wonderful, community-oriented movement, that revolved around Black Lives Matter, and that doesn’t get shown.”

Police brutality towards the black community is nothing new, but many Americans have become more aware of the issue because of the Internet. The internet’s accessibility makes it easy for people to share any videos documenting these incidents.

BLM has been successful using social media to spread its message. Even the name started out as a hashtag on twitter, and then the movement took off using social media.

“[The police] have control over media as a mass,” Williams said. “They own those. But they don’t own what I post on my Instagram, my Twitter, my Snapchat. Those go around and touch millions of people.”

Social media also make it easy for celebrity figures to get involved and bring these issues into the forefront.

“The people who [are] in a position of power and have the influence, [aren’t always using] it for good,” Williams said. “[These] are the people who the black people really need, and because they don’t care, is why white America [doesn’t] care.”

Moderator: Daisy Lightfoot

Anchor: Sarina Sandoval

Reporters: Jon Gripe, Ashley Horton, Daisy Lightfoot, Andrew Pitters, Sarina Sandoval

Social Media Editors: Jon Gripe, Daisy Lightfoot, Andrew Pitters