For the last few years there has been a revolution brewing with not only women’s sports, but women in sport. More female sports athletes are getting more high profile spots to showcase their talents, women’s fights in the UFC are main eventing those events and female sportscasters are breaking through glass ceilings such as Beth Mowins on Monday Night Football.
Earlier this month, Mowins became the first woman to call a MNF game, and while that act in itself broke through a very thick glass ceiling, social media wasn’t as supportive as it should have been.
The New York Times has an article on a female sportscasters leap to primetime and the reaction surrounding it. While steps like this are fantastic for sports broadcasting and society in general…the reaction shows we still have a long way to go.
“Shrill.” “Grating.” “Like listening to my ex nag me.” “Sounds like my mom yelling at me.”
Women in sports broadcasting are used to men criticizing their voices. In my three years in sports radio, I’ve had more men complain about my voice than everything else about me combined — and trust me, there are a lot of other things they don’t like about me.
“It has nothing to do with you being a woman,” they tell me, “I just can’t stand the sound of your voice.”
For someone who gets paid primarily to say sports words on the radio, listeners hating the sound of her voice is somewhat troubling.
Even women at the top of our profession aren’t immune. Beth Mowins smashed through the thickest glass ceiling in sports this month, becoming the first woman to call a game on “Monday Night Football.” The moment Mowins spoke a word into her microphone, Twitter lit up with complaints about her voice.
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