Madam, - Generally speaking, women are not very good at sport, according to Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, October 8th). That's why we don't see many pictures of sports women in the papers. He proceeds to enlighten us to the fact that "all other things being equal, a picture desk will always opt for a picture of a woman over a man". Nobody seems to have told his own newspaper's picture desk about this "fact".
In the same newspaper, on the same day (excluding images of columnists and advertisements), there were 19 male to five female images relating to political stories. "All other things being equal", as Mr Myers says, women must not be very good at politics. There were 13 male to five female images relating to arts and media stories. "All other things being equal", women must not be very good at the arts.
There were seven male to zero female images relating to crime stories, 16 males and no females in the sports section.
Only in fashion did women thrive, by seven to none - all modelling material by male designers. Throughout the paper there were 73 male compared with 21 female images. "All other things being equal", as Mr Myers says, women must not be very good at life, or the papers would be full of all those images of women the picture desks are so eager to print.
We in the Dublin Sports and Recreation Council carried out a piece of research quoted by the Oireachtas Report on Women in Sport regarding media coverage. We counted all sports images in Irish newspapers over a 10-day period and found there were 2,687 images of which only 69 were of women.
The imagery in our national newspapers is not a passive reflection of reality: it has a powerful subconscious influence on the shaping of readers' perception of reality and, in turn, on the shaping of reality itself. Many people within the sports world are working hard to overcome a long tradition of male domination. For example, how many readers are aware that in England in 1920 the Women's Soccer League was such a popular event that 54,000 spectators attended a women's match in London? Soon after, the FA banned the use of their grounds by women and that ban remained in place until 1976.
Positive change takes time; and until a few more white male journalists stretch their minds enough to explore the life experience and perceptions of those who are not born with such self-centred supremacist privilege, all things will never be equal, regardless of what Mr Myers says. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN DOWLING, Chairperson, Dublin Sports and Recreation Council, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8.