{"id":405,"date":"2015-11-24T16:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cusjc.ca\/closeup\/?p=405"},"modified":"2015-11-24T21:16:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T21:16:29","slug":"megan-halhed-sexism-in-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/closeup\/2015\/11\/24\/megan-halhed-sexism-in-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexism in sports nothing new"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Megan Halhed was 15, a coach told her to move out of the way for real players because girls can\u2019t play hockey. She was about to go on the ice with her co-ed team, when the incident happened.<\/p>\n

Halhed, 20, is a nursing student at the University of Ottawa, and a goaltender for the Gee-Gees women\u2019s hockey team. She discovered her love of the sport at age 10 when her mother brought her to the arena to learn how to skate. She immediately fell in love with hockey, and played on a boys\u2019 team until 2011. She said her family has always encouraged her.<\/p>\n

\"Megan<\/a>

Megan Halhed, Hokey player.<\/p><\/div>\n

When the Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard was asked to twirl on the court at the end of one of her matches at the Australian Open, Jessica Schnurr and Hannah Smith, who both work for an advertising company in Toronto, decided it was time to do something.<\/p>\n

They launched a social media campaign #CoverTheAthlete and created a video that\u2019s been viewed 1.5 million times since it was launched on YouTube three weeks ago. According to Schnurr and Smith, there needs to be a change in narrative for media coverage of female athletes. The campaign criticizes how the media portrays female athletes, often in a sexist way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll realize that the public wants better coverage and better questions asked of these athletes, and they\u2019ll kind of rise to the occasion, and start asking better questions,\u201d Schnurr said.<\/p>\n

She said the media should spotlight the performance instead of the athlete\u2019s physical attributes, hair or clothing.<\/p>\n