Obstacles Faced by Women in Sports
By: A’nya Newton
For decades, men athletes have had multiple opportunities to play for championships but, women athletes were required to play in an organization catered for only women’s sports. This changed when many women defied odds and made athletics possible for girls all ages today. There are still many problems in today’s women’s athletic organizations. For example women have to go through many obstacles in order to succeed including the wage gap, recognition, body shaming, and television coverage.
One inequality that women face in athletics, despite their talent or work ethic is the wage gap between men and women. The wage gap is seen in almost every sport played by men and women. For example, the average salary earned for a WNBA player is $71,635 while the average NBA player gets paid $582,180 a year. Many women playing in the WNBA have noticed this problem and started fighting for women to get paid equally. Another sport that the wage gap is seen a lot is soccer. In this sport, the United States Women’s National Team is highly successful and won the World Cup in 2015. When they won, they were awarded 2 million dollars afterwards. In the recent 2018 Men’s World Cup, France defeated Croatia 4–2. France earned 38 million dollars for winning the Cup. Also, every losing team in the World Cup for men is awarded a minimum of 8 million dollars while the women do not get a reward automatically for entering the tournament. Another example in soccer is the pay between each player on the National Teams of each gender. The average pay on the Women’s side is $37.800 while the men on average make $300,000. The men make about 40% more than the women do just on average. Michael Graber, the father of two daughters, is greatly concerned about the pay difference between the two genders. Graber said,“In sports TV, the tail wags the dog. The money goes where the audience is. Money will go to women’s sports as soon as an audience wants to watch women, so the best way to support women athletes is by attending women’s sports in the first place.” Michael Graber ultimately wants to increase the audience’s knowledge of what is going on in the sports world. went on to say that fathers if they have daughters should take them to see all the opportunities that await them in the future. He wants the future to change so his children and many other children can get the respect and viewers they deserve and eventually get the pay they deserve.
Another inequality that woman in athletic organizations face is body-shaming. A good example is Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas. She faced many comments about her body being muscular but men are praised for their muscular structure. They could even be participating in the same sport as the female and look the same but only the female would get shamed. Many sports require the body to be more muscular than the average human. The body shaming comes from any human who has no idea what athletes go through in order to compete at the level Douglas does.
A third inequality that women athlete’s come across is not getting the same respect as the men. Women’s sports are often overlooked by all humans, athletic or not. Allyson Felix, a track and field olympic champion stated,
“‘The biggest issues facing women in sports right now are visibility and respect. Women are still not given the same opportunities as men, and it does not seem like our accomplishments are viewed as being as impressive as men’s are. Unfortunately, over my career, I have not seen this change much, but it’s something that I believe in and am excited to help change in the future. These issues have impacted every aspect of my career. They impact the economics of my business, but they do not impact my worth or the way I view my accomplishments”.
Allyson Felix’s quote indicates that women athletes often do struggle to receive recognition. The only people that recognize these problems are the women that are involved in female sports and understand what the others are going through. A company named Always recently made a survey to see what people believe are equal between men and women. The results showed that many of the 1800 men and women believed both genders are equal in math and science. The problem was the survey stated that many people agreed that in sports, both genders are definitely not treated equal. 47 percent of the women surveyed agreed that men are better and get more acknowledgement for playing sports. Hilary Knight, a member of the U.S Hockey team stated that these results were disappointing when she said “It’s just a gradual growth process that we kind of have to see through.” This survey proves that many people know how unfairly the women are treated in sports but continue to do nothing about it. Michele Yulo, a mother of her 9 year old daughter, who plays basketball and baseball on a boys team also believes that taking strides to provide opportunities for girls in sports is very important for girls of all ages. This needs to be the main focus of all humans because in order to make the world of sports even, it needs to get the attention it deserves. Michele especially wants this to happen so her daughters can get the experience they deserve. After experiencing the discrimination with her daughters she stated,”What I think is gaining traction is an awareness of female athletes in general and recognition of their strength, skill and determination — and that yes, this has some effect on the popularity and growth of women’s sports programs”. While the amount of people worried about this problem is growing, it is not the main focus of most of these people. In order to see all the discrimination disappear, people need to understand all of the facts and help women overcome these obstacles.
Photo: AARON LAVINSKY, Associated Press
Even though the 21st century is supposed to a time where everyone is equal, there are still many obstacles women have to overcome in order to become treated just as the male athletes do. Today, women have to work harder and prove themselves more than the men do to just get a fraction of the respect almost all men get. Women have realized this inequality and started convention that discuss how all women need to support each other in the sports because of how they are treated by the rest of the world. These conventions also help girls stand up for themselves, have confidence in anything they ever do, and eventually become great leaders in their life. Overcoming these obstacles helps the women grow and become a stronger human being.
