Gymnast Shawn Johnson partnered with Dove’s #MyBeautyMySay campaign to deliver a message about sexism in sports reporting.
In the letter, she writes, “’Hot Blonde.’ ‘Huge Nipples.’ ‘Frizzy Hair.’ These are just a few of the descriptions of other female athletes I have recently seen in the media. Regardless of how strong these women’s performances were, at the end of the day, the media and the world still continue to layer commentary about their looks into their reporting of the sport.”
“I have continuously been inspired by the Dove real beauty mission throughout my career,” she added. “So, when I heard the brand was launching the #MyBeautyMySay campaign to challenge the way female athletes are represented in the media, I knew I had to be a part of it. It’s time to focus on all athletes’ performance, not their appearance. I know, because I was targeted with invasive comments about my body—starting when I was just 16 years old.”
Johnson reports that she was asked, “Do you think you’ll be successful, since you have a different body style than a normal gymnast?” when first starting out in her professional career. Journalists, commentators and anchors kept comparing her body to her teammates’ bodies, rather than comparing skill sets.
Although she was considered a world-class athlete, Johnson shares that she was often called “too muscular,” a woman with “too much bulk,” “too short” and told that she “looked too young.”
Starting in late July, Dove will be broadcasting on billboards in New York City, Los Angeles and Toronto, posting actual comments that people in the media say about female athletes. As the comments appear, the women on the billboard will disappear, in order to make a statement about how these comments can be seen as trivializing of these women’s athletic careers.
