Olympians' maternity wards face "excessive media attention"

Motherhood relegates active Olympic athletes in Brazil and Spain to a secondary role in the media, according to a study by Portuguese universities, which recognizes the topic as the target of “excessive media focus” in news coverage.

"We know that journalism stems from an interest in what's beyond the obvious. Although the number of women who are mothers of athletes has increased, it's still relatively rare. What do we see as the problem? It's the exhaustive repetition of the topic and approach, and often the focus on that aspect is superior to the sports aspect," researcher Caroline Patatt explains to Lusa.

Patatt, who worked for a decade as a sports journalist, wrote an article as a researcher at the University of Beira Interior, together with her colleague Micaela Cabral and Carla Cerqueira, from the Lusófona University, in which they analyze the media coverage of mother-athletes at the Rio2016 and Tokyo2020 Olympic Games in Brazil and Spain.

"It's curious, to say the least, that some athletes, in some cases, have been repeatedly portrayed in the same way. They've won medals, had their achievements, aspirations, difficulties, and glories, but motherhood always ends up being portrayed in a very similar way, almost along the lines of: 'despite being an athlete, she's a mother.' 'Despite being a mother, she's an athlete,'" she adds.

The analysis, which also extended to the associated Olympic cycles, noted that the athletes were reduced to the "feat" of having been mothers and maintained themselves at the highest level in sport, not always with emphasis on the situation itself, such as "due to contractual breaches, unpaid salaries" or lack of support, therefore "a constructive way".

Among the cases that drew attention, the researcher noted that of Alexandra Nascimento, interviewed for the investigation, who decided to withdraw from the Brazilian handball team after Tokyo 2020 because she wanted to be a mother.

After her daughter was born, she continued to play at the highest level in Spain, and Elche, her club, became a case in point for support, "offering a nanny, the possibility of taking her daughter to training, training camps and matches", "an atypical situation that was recorded".

“But in Brazil, the issue simply died [after withdrawing]. It’s over,” he laments.

Corinthians footballer Tamires Dias had already been a mother for 11 years when, in 2021, she continued to be asked what it was like to be a mother in high-performance football, leading her to express discomfort with this approach.

"There's the issue of reconditioning, the rehabilitation process, as with a player with an injury. It's a natural process. In Alexandra's case, she had to have a C-section and reported a very complex process. But what about when the child is already 11 years old? What keeps the approach consistent?" asks Patatt.

In Spain, artistic swimmer Ona Carbonell, a 23-time World Championship medalist, was “reduced to that condition,” since all the news items studied by researchers in the defined period, “absolutely all of them,” addressed the topic of motherhood.

"In the material we analyzed, in Spain, in 48.8% of cases, these indicative words associated [with motherhood], not counting synonyms, were repeated. When they were discussed, they were discussed extensively. And other issues ended up being relegated to the background," she laments.

This excessive focus “needs to be revised,” so that repetition doesn’t tire readers, who could instead benefit from “different perspectives” on a high-level career.

The lack of guidance in newsrooms regarding topics, on the one hand, and this medium being “still very much a male medium today,” even if this gender asymmetry is attenuated in Olympic coverage, contribute to this effect.

"We start from the universalized view that motherhood and sports are still situations that don't quite mix. Journalism is interested in the different, the curious, which is natural. We grow up in a society that teaches us to look at women differently, at women in sports differently, and at mothers in sports almost as an aberration, as if it were impossible to reconcile," she analyzes.

In addition to a second part of the study, their mission is "more than just pointing out what needs to be improved, to contribute to that improvement," which is why they will create a manual of good practices to be distributed to Portuguese, Brazilian, and Spanish media outlets, identifying guidelines for media coverage.

"We're not going to transform a situation that's been going on for many, many years with a manual, but I believe small steps, specific changes, will help create a more diverse perspective. We'll seek more nuanced insights into the reality of these athletes," she concludes.

The article “Motherhood in the Olympic context : an analysis of the news published in the most accessed sports portals in Brazil and Spain”, published in Communication & Sport, will now be presented in September at a conference at Sapienza University in Rome.