There are 1.9 million
fewer women than men who participate in sports at every level.
I grew up watching sports. Hockey, baseball,
and even the occasional tennis match. It was hard for me to imagine that there
was and always has been a difference in the culture of sports for men and
women. It was easy for me to assume that it was normal to only see male
dominated sports, to only watch commercials showcasing the latest up and coming
superstar in the NBA, and it also seemed normal that there was a lack of
females – unless, of course, they were wearing bikinis holding a giant #2 so to
symbolize the beginning of the second round in a UFC fight.
As you could imagine it was not much of a
surprise that as one grows up, one begins to realize that the lack of female
athletes, commentators, and overall support of females playing sports is in
fact, not okay. As I began to understand the true nature of the sporting
industry, it is no surprise that women in sports have continuously, across the
board, been in a fight for fair pay, and even more so, for pure equality and
respect. This can date back to hundreds of years ago when very few sports were
considered appropriate for women, whether for reasons of supposed physical
frailty, or for alleged moral dangers of vigorous exercise. In the colonial
times, the few recreational activities that were acceptable for women were
reserved for upper white class females. Women could travel by sleigh in the
winter and horse carriage in the summer – what an opportunity!
Flash forward to the Victorian Age…
And yet again, you will find very few
opportunities within the world of sport for females. But, as more and more men
participated in sports, new “national” sports associations formed. And with
this came little advancement in the realm of opportunity for women, as there
was the Montreal Ladies Archery Club which was formed in 1858, and the new
“safety” bicycle. As Tony Collins puts it, Victorian society viewed sport as
“inseparable from the philosophy of Muscular Christianity, which defined itself
against femininity and ‘softness.’”
Looking back to the beginning of the inequality
women faced, it seems hard to believe that this would still be going on today…
yet here we are… still facing the inequalities of equal pay, opportunities, and
things that seem so simple, like, advertisement and sponsorship.
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It is no surprise that
the number of girls dropping out of sports is at such an alarming rate. This is because how could we expect
a young girl who is, for example, playing hockey, to believe that there are
opportunities for her past the midget level when there is no WHL, OHL, or CHL
for girls to get drafted into. There is no NHL league for women either. Yes,
there is a college and university level but even with that, after college,
there is Team Canada and the Olympics which maybe gets a tournament once a year
and the winter Olympics occur every 4 years. This seems like a bit less in
comparison to the men who play in the NHL from the month of October to May
every, single, year.
The sports industry is based on unequal pay and
opportunity, with a severe lack of broadcast time for female sporting events,
and a lack of corporate support with a need for more women in leadership
positions. There is an increasingly overabundance of male representation in the
sporting industry. This ultimately affects women in sports. This is because
there are decisions by corporations on which sports to spend marketing dollars
on, the choices by the broadcasters on how and which sports are packaged for
public consumption, and who leads our sport organizations, all directly affect
how women participate in sport and how they are compensated.
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Here are a few fun facts (they aren’t really
fun at all):
Ø From 1928 to 1960, women were not
allowed to compete in races of more than 200 metres, because it was felt that
running for longer made them too tired.
Ø It took until 1984 for women to make
up one-fifth of competing athletes in the Olympics.
Ø Almost half of the National Olympic
committees surveyed by the IOC have fewer than 20% of women on their Executive
boards, including ten nations who had no women at all.
Ø Only 0.4% of all commercial
investment is into women’s sport and only 7% of all sports coverage is of
women’s sport.
Ø Women only make up 18% of qualified
coaches and 9% of senior coaches.
Ø For almost half (49%) of publicly
funded national governing bodies, less than a quarter of their board are women.
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Yes, it would be true to say that the inclusion
of women has gotten better in the world of sports since the Colonial times when
all they could do was ride horses. However, that does not make up for the lack
of opportunity women in the sports industry face, daily. It does not okay the
fact that Sidney Crosby in the NHL is making 8.7 million dollars, and yet the
team to represent the United States of America in the world women’s hockey
championship and the Olympics must fight for equal pay. And although they
reached an agreement, I am sure that it is still not equivalent to the wealth
accumulated by the males playing in the NHL. Yes, there is also a women’s
basketball league, but do we see the same coverage of their tournaments as we
do the NBA or even the male college basketball teams in March Madness? I think
not. I think it is safe to say that although some would argue we have made
great improvements, I would not. I would say, we still have a long way to go.
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Works Cited:
Marshall, Tabitha. "The History Of Canadian Women In
Sport". The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., 2017. Web.
Wigmore, Tim. "Sport’s Gender Pay Gap: Why Are Women
Still Paid Less Than Men?". Newstatesman.com. N.p., 2017. Web.
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