Sexualization of women's sports: "Slap in the face for every woman"

Almost two weeks ago, more than 16,000 spectators watched in the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul as the hosts defeated the German volleyball players in the European Championship quarter-finals. In this country, the general sports audience has noticed little about it. The games could only be seen via paid streams. But coach Giulio Bregoli and the players remained proud of having made it to the quarter-finals for the first time since 2019.

The advertising campaign for a sports betting provider with US actress Sydney Sweeney has attracted significantly more headlines and attention these days. It's misleadingly called "Just Sports" because it's not about the sport itself.

Rather, the campaign focuses on how many men look at sport. Because sports bets are mainly made by men. In Germany, they bet almost five times as much on sporting events as women.

And so the normally beautiful, blonde Sweeney is equipped, naked or half-naked, with a football, soccer ball, basketball or tennis racket in order to make the particularly busy betting markets more attractive for customers.

The German volleyball players have joined a worldwide protest by female athletes and posted a clip from a European Championship game scene from Turkey, which is captioned with the sentence: “Hey Sydney Seeney, this is what women in sport look like.” Similar video and photo messages from top athletes can be found in large numbers on social media.

Former Australian swimmer and four-time Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus said via Instagram that she “can’t describe how angry” she is. The campaign is “not only a slap in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her skills, but also to every woman who values ​​sport for what it really is – teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, togetherness.” British sprinter Amy Hunt told the BBC that muscles are the result of “hard work, blood, sweat and tears.” Sport is “not pretty”, “not glamorous” and “definitely not always sexy”.

The offensiveness of the campaign is almost obvious. An initiative by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in the summer illustrated how much female athletes suffer in their everyday lives from the sexualized view of their competitions. This created a 23-page guide to the question: How do you film a female athlete so that the recordings honor her skills instead of degrading her?

Among other things, it was stated that intrusive close-ups of specific body parts - breasts and buttocks - that distract the focus from athletic performance should be avoided. Likewise, slow motion, which has no added value for sporting knowledge.

German athletes such as pole vaulter Sarah Vogel and former sprinter Alexandra Burghardt welcomed the new guidelines before the European Athletics Championships. The fact that it took so long before they were formulated says something about what was long taken for granted.

If you also consider what a big and still poorly addressed problem sport has with sexualized violence, the advertising campaign with Sydney Sweeney should be condemned all the more. The sexualization of female athletes' bodies promotes a climate in which sexual violence is trivialized.

The perfidious thing about such advertising campaigns, however, is that their success is fueled by attention, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Provocation is therefore consciously used as a stylistic device. And many people remember Sweeney for another controversial commitment. Just last year she advertised for a US fashion brand with the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”. The sound of the English words for genes (“genes”) and jeans was played with. Back then, too, protests were loud, especially on social media. The possible racist connotations were discussed.

The jeans advertising was considered a commercial success. And it could be similar with the current campaign. However, remaining silent is not a sensible alternative to the provocative attempt to normalize such a view again.