On the Sidelines: Gendered Neoliberalism and the American Female Sportscaster

by Guy Harrison, Julie Dicaro (Foreword)

2022 Outstanding Book Award in the Communication and Sport Division from the National Communication Association

When sports fans turn on the television or radio today, they undoubtedly find more women on the air than ever before. Nevertheless, women sportscasters are still subjected to gendered and racialized mistreatment in the workplace and online and are largely confined to anchor and sideline reporter positions in coverage of high-profile men’s sports. In On the Sidelines  Guy Harrison weaves in-depth interviews with women sportscasters, focus groups with sports fans, and a collection of media products to argue that gendered neoliberalism—a cluster of exclusionary twenty-first-century feminisms—maintains this status quo.

Spinning a cohesive narrative, Harrison shows how sportscasting’s dependence on gendered neoliberalism broadly places the onus on women for their own success despite systemic sexism and racism. As a result, women in the industry are left to their own devices to navigate double standards, bias in hiring and development for certain on-air positions, harassment, and emotional labor. Through the lens of gendered neoliberalism, On the Sidelines examines each of these challenges and analyzes how they have been reshaped and maintained to construct a narrow portrait of the ideal neoliberal female sportscaster. Consequently, these challenges are taken for granted as “natural,” sustaining women’s marginalization in the sportscasting industry.

Genres: Academic

186 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2021

About the author

Guy Harrison is a professor of journalism and electronic media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He received his doctoral degree from Arizona State University in 2018. 'On the Sidelines: Gendered Neoliberalism and the American Female Sportscaster' is his first scholarly book. In 2012, Harrison made his debut as a novelist, self-publishing 'Agents of Change,' the first of three books in a trilogy of science fiction action thrillers.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Philadelphia, Harrison lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife Lindsay and their three children.

Reviews

[Julie Dicaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of this extraordinary book (and to write the foreword) that looks into the marginalization of women in sports media as well as the reasons behind it. We all know representation matters, and we simply don't have enough of it when it comes to women, and especially Black women and other women of color, in the sports industry. If we want to improve equity and inclusion in the industry, we have to understand the white supremacist and patriarchal forces that got us here in the first place, and no one does a better job than breaking them down than Prof. Guy Harrison.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A concise, well-theorized, and compelling study of not only why sports media remains so exclusionary and misogynistic, but how it came to be this way and what it would take to fix it. The skillful application of "gendered neoliberalism" to sportscasting shows the constant and unyielding paradoxes that women in sports media face, as they are, at every turn, damned if they do and damned if they don't. Drawing from in-depth interviews, focus groups, and media analysis, Guy Harrison explores these dynamics with regard to women sportscasters' appearance, expertise, and how they are expected to "just deal with" workplace and online harassment as simply part of the job. This book will appeal to scholars of sport, media, and gender, and is accessible to graduate students and upper division undergraduates, as well as to general sports enthusiasts interested to understand, and advocate to improve, the current sports media landscape.

[Katherine Lavelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wonderful. Dr. Harrison does an excellent job both contextualizing this issue from a scholarly perspective and contributing to this important conversation. This book is extremely well written and researched. I really enjoyed it because it connects to my research interests, but I think that this book is accessible as public scholarship.

[Letisha Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well argued and critical examination of gendered neoliberalism with respect to American sport casting. A must read for those interested in issues of sports, gender and work.