Dribble as a man? : Invisibility and media discrimination of the Cuban women's basketball team, despite this obvious quality on a global scale

• In Event: Contested Masculinities in Sport

Abstract

The general panorama of the sports press is one of those environments in which discrimination against women is reflected, supported by the sociocultural construction of sexist gender that exist in Cuban society.
This research proposes an analysis of media discrimination, taking as a point of reference, this Cuban women's basketball team, which adds seven gold medals from 1967 to 2015 on the international scene, in addition to seven silver medals and five of bronze in their participations in FIBA Americas Championships and Panamerican Games.
In interviews with journalists, program directors, publishers of sports and other specialists, among the main causes of discrimination they noted, the lack of prominence of female disciplines in the popular taste and the neglect of the institutions involved, which connects with inequities of gender, that transcend the media environment.
The discourse analysis (textual, visual and sound) of sports publications in the second semester of 2017, the games transmissions of the Superior League of Basketball of Cuba and Centroamerican Games 2018, was demonstrated the prevalence of a sexist and discriminatory approach, in which women basketball players were practically invisible.
The surveys of female basketball players revealed that, as a consequence of this situation, there is lack of motivation, abandonment of sport, decrease in sports results, lack of rigor in training and emigration to other countries, which undoubtedly caused a decrease in the performance of the athletes and the national team.

Authors

• Liz Arianna Bobadilla León, Periodista

• Jesús E Muñoz Machín, Red Iberoamericana y Africana de Masculinidades