Like cycling and the 'movement towards equality'.
I just read an article in a well established and respected magazine about equality in cycling. It talked about the current dire situation for top end female cyclists, how 'male' the sport remains (including in some of the advertising), and the (relatively slow) progress being made, highlighting where improvements still need to happen.
To be honest, I am sick of these articles. I have been reading these for a few years now, and they all follow the same script: women's cycling in comparison to the men's version is appalling in terms of profile, investment and reward for athletes. And then they usually exclaim: but women's racing is exciting! People actually watch it! More people watched it at the Olympics than the men's! The article then might mention that 'some stuff' is being done - finally - by the head of the organisation, so while more needs to be done, for now we have our answer and can return to regular programming.
I was disheartened to discover that this story was the only dedicated article on women's cycling in the entire 224 page publication. There were a few other bits: a contribution by a female athlete on training, some pictures in an equipment review, and two short profiles, but that was it. And this pearler of an advertisement:
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| Wanna Rendez-vous in Paris, hey hey? |
Here's the thing. If you want to see an improvement in the profile, investment and reward for female in cycling, stop writing articles saying there is a lack of profile, investment and reward in women's cycling. Instead, do something about it!
May I suggest writing some articles about women's cycling, or significantly increasing the number of images of women racing? Perhaps write about the female athletes (while avoiding asking the athletes to write their own articles, which is the tactic of another major cycling news outlet. At least they get paid...?). Or write about the teams, or on women around bikes in some way.
Try creatively applying Geena Davis' Two Easy Steps to Make Hollywood Less Sexist:
1) Go through the projects you're already working on and change a bunch of the characters' first names to women's names.
Okay, so you can't make a direct application to Geena's rules, so in this case, take your story focus area on men's cycling and apply it to a rider/riders/team from the women's peloton.
Suddenly you have a topic that is not just another piece on 'equality in cycling' but which show cases a side of cycling that is a) a relatively unique perspective (given how infrequently this seems to happen) and b) slowly helps to build the fascination behind women's cycling. It also removes the novelty tone of a female in a traditionally male-filled role.
2) When describing a crowd scene, write in the script, "A crowd gathers, which is half female."
In this case, I suggest looking for contributions from writers and photographers who are covering women's cycling. They are around. If you can't expand the budget, then get your in-house writers and photographers to cover women's cycling. Why not aim for half of your cycling stories to be about women?
I understand this appears easier than the reality. Having looked into this as a bit of a focus area for Cycling Victoria in 2013, I learnt from journos that they would increase coverage of women's cycling if:
a) material was supplied to them re: stories about women's cycling, and
b) if the women themselves were more willing to be interviewed and forgiving of the mistakes and lack of knowledge a journo might have about their backgrounds.
We took this feedback seriously. In response, Cycling Victoria held two workshops teaching athletes, teams, and women's AustCycle beginner cycling Teachers (from our Breeze program) about the importance of building social media profiles and being available for interviews. We also brought in experts to provide advice on how to prepare media releases and approach media outlets to pitch stories.
With these efforts I would have to say that the awareness has increased but not much else has changed. I know we need to repeat the training and continue to invest in this, as generally women are less likely to boast about their achievements and pitch themselves to media outlets. The more we are aware of this, the more we can try to overcome the relative 'shyness'.
I also learnt that, in cycling, there is a part c) as well:
c) Journos need to be willing to write about women's cycling.
This to me seems to be the biggest barrier to the opportunity for increasing coverage on women's cycling. Journos with major news outlets simply aren't interested in the topic of women's cycling, other than the above equality-formula article.
I was comforted to see coverage on the US Pro weekend with equal amounts for the men and women (until Phinney crashed, but fair enough - big story! So too was Ali Powers' incredible hattrick, but I don't think it got as many re-tweets). It reinforced that you can provide quality coverage to both sides. Many others do this too. For the past few years Cycling Australia has committed to providing equal share of stories, news and video highlights to the women and men of the NRS. These efforts are so important and are valued.
Race reporting is one thing, but it is the coverage in the mainstream media and the bigger cycling news outlets, the feature articles, the riders-as-people stuff, that for women are harder to find. When you do find them, they are gorgeous. Read Jen See's feature, I am Marianne Vos, as a recent example. The funny thing is, people love reading about women's cycling. 91% of survey respondents in the Cycling Australia women in cycling survey said they loved reading about women's cycling. That's a bloody good stat if you want to develop an emerging market.
In 2014 Cycling Victoria introduced a media award to recognise those who are going above and beyond in their efforts to promote women's cycling in Victoria, or women from Victoria achieving great things outside of our borders. The award was won by Star News Group and South East Melbourne sports reporter, Jarrod Potter. Jarrod realised that there was a wealth of hidden stories in his region not just about the achievements of women competing in sport, but also stories on women simply participating in sport. He sought support from his editor to focus on finding these stories. He also knew that if he wrote these stories, they would always get published. These stories now find him: he has a name and a reputation to cover women's sport. Fortunately, this includes cycling and in 2013 he wrote feature article after feature article on women's cycling in his region. He is now an award winner.
At the 2013 Road World Champs in Florence Italy, the post-race press room would be full of journos for the men's races, but was significantly emptier for the women's. Within ten minutes of the men's press conference, fifty people had written down the exact same quote and another fifty were hanging around trying to get a private second or two with one of the riders to make their article have a point of difference. Such energy investment and competition! Want your story to stand out? Want YOU to stand out? Change things.
There is so much that needs to evolve and change for us to consider that cycling is truly headed towards equality. We all have a role to play. Mainstream news outlets and major cycling news sources have an audience and influence that is significant. And they are missing out on a key market. I believe there is a responsibility and, in dollar terms, an opportunity to not only to report on progress but to be the progress.
