Magnify and Mainstream the Mental Side
Dear Sports Media,
The past year has been awesome getting to see the growth in media coverage over Female Sports. Even though the stats say that only 4% of sports media coverage is dedicated to women, we can slowly FEEL it changing. It truly has been invigorating to see our sport in particular lead the charge with female athletes making headlines that challenge societal norms, and call out injustices. Every time I check my social media feed I am inundated with badass women who are doing amazing things on the field or court. Organizations are popping up, such as Togethxr, challenging and demanding more coverage for women, by women.
In particular, it has been personally satisfying to see the conversation about the mental side become bigger with larger media companies such as Just Women’s Sports, The Hidden Opponent and EspnW, publishing articles about the mental health of athletes in sport. Maybe one positive of Covid was that it highlighted and began to normalize that we need more resources and conversation around the mental side of sports. However, unfortunately, the articles we read often are about the mental crisis players have faced. Or the struggles they have been through, past tense. Only recently with the bravery of Naomi Osaka coming forward to discuss her struggles has a light been shined on what current struggle looks like. Call us greedy but we want more.
So I am going to push for more. I challenge all media to discuss the mental side EVEN MORE in depth. If this past year taught us anything, it's that when we speak up, we create change. So here is my challenge for you: (calling y’all out in the nicest way) --Just Women’s Sports, Espnw, On Her Turf, Find Her Football, Togethxr, SportsIllustrated and other publications that are similar… WRITE MORE ABOUT ATHLETES MENTAL SIDE RIGHT NOW. Write more about the athletes' mental preparations before competition. Highlight players and the sports psychologists they work with right now. Interview them and ask them questions about what kind of support they have on the mental side. Question whether or not they feel mentally supported by their organizations. Demand those organizations speak up and give answers as to what they make available to their athletes. Ask them if they discussed the mental side as youth athletes. Question why the mental side of sport isn’t better supported.
The Olympics start this week. We’ve already had a few female athletes in different sports either get disqualified or voluntarily step down from competing due to mental health issues. We have the chance to tweak the narrative. We can highlight all the amazing things our female athletes are going to do. We will celebrate the medals, the podium and the people in the sport. But we can also NORMALIZE, MAGNIFY and MAINSTREAM that mental health and mindset performance is just as important as the physical and technical side of sports. We can do that just by the way we frame our articles and coverage. You have the power to create this kind of change for our athletes.
And can you imagine the trickle down effect that it will have? Can you imagine how if we mainstream the importance and call out our own national organizations by questioning what supports they have in place, how that will challenge them to make the necessary changes to help our athletes be even more successful?
Our motto at Female Footballers is “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Can you imagine if our young girls saw this? If they saw the conversation change from ‘ we are tough when we suffer in silence and grit our teeth’ to ‘Speaking up when you’re struggling and being self aware of your needs, is STRENGTH and MENTAL TOUGHNESS?’ If they could see it, read it, we think it will help them start to be it. So although you are all working tirelessly to cover more, and call attention to our female badasses, thats our one small ask. Keep up the good work! And if we are wrong, we will happily smile because of that.
LFG,
Kassie Gray
Female Footballers Founder
www.femalefootballers.org