Gender Inequality in Sports? There Is A Lot…
[ABSTRACT]
The purpose of this article is to examine existing gender inequality in the field of sports: from athletes’ participation to organization leadership. Inequality has been a long-existing social issue: reported experiences in women’s sports do not lack cold showers, dark car-park, and unsupportive coaches; the prize money of women’s tourneys has been only about 1/5 of men’s; news media silences women’s competition and excludes women commentators… Research on organizational outcomes has a persuasive result showing that women indeed have positive impacts on organization-level decision makings. Unfortunately, gender diversity still appeared to be low among most board members. I am arguing that even though improvements have been made throughout the years with efforts, existing social norms are still deep-rooted in the heart of the organization. Therefore, gender logic transformations are more than necessary as we are moving forward. One of the best applications is that women should be represented in leadership roles so that their voices can be heard in formal ways. Women’s segregated participation can be seen as a part of gender equity but transforming inherent gendered logic will lead us even further in both sports and our society as a whole.
INTRODUCTION: Where Do We See Gender Inequality in Sports?
A couple of weeks ago, my high school made a post on Instagram proudly announced that Haley Van Voorhis’21 is going to make history again. According to the Washington Post, “Van Voorhis is being recruited to play football by several colleges, including Division III Shenandoah University in Winchester. Wherever she lands, the first time she steps on the field, she will be the first woman to play a position other than punter or kicker on an NCAA team.” She is currently playing for the D.C. Divas professional team in the Women’s Football Alliance this spring (Shapiro, 2021). Back in high school, I had been to some of her Football games, and I also played Varsity Lacrosse with her. Everyone knows how incredibly hard she worked and played, so we cannot be prouder.
But do you ever wonder why NCAA does not have women’s football? I have been thinking about this for years without a firm answer. Some girls started throwing and catching with their elder brother at a very young age. They loved the feeling, so they went to a local youth club for weekly practice. Then they started high school and found out that they can only play on the boys’ team. And eventually, they decided to become audiences, not players anymore.
Why? Because they are girls and women?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Gender Inequality in Sports Throughout the History
Gender inequality has not been a frequently discussed topic in the field of sports, but its impact on female athletes is never negligible. Pavlidis, a DECRA fellow with strength in governance influence, takes perspectives from previous outstanding researchers and builds upon them. It was downhearted to see what women and girls have been through: “there are also the more mundane atmospheres: of cold showers, hard benches, dark car park, and even rejection or unsupportive coaches and training.” None of these is encouraging in any sense. Furthermore, these discouragements not only impact women’s performance, but also influence them from a variety of directions, such as national belongs, cultural citizenship, leadership, and organization (Pavlidis, 2018). Fortunately, a number of outstanding female athletes are shaped through adversities. They are great examples for young women to look up to. Even though surroundings show nonacceptance, do not hesitate to show the world what you can do.
REFORMATION: We Realized and Tried
Not surprisingly, female athletes are fully aware of the inequality from different aspects. In an Instagram post made by Kimberley Hill, she said “for as long as most people can remember, the prize money for women’s tourneys has been only about 1/5 of that of men’s tourneys. This year it was finally equal, matching the men’s winnings.” Hill, a professional volleyball player, has played for the national team since 2013. More directly, the prize money for the same number of players that earn the same place in the same tournament has been different based on genders for years. Talking about payment, gender pay gap usually comes to mind immediately. No doubts that it still exists under the table, but the Equal Pay Act did significantly push the employment of equal pay for equal work. Luckily, with reformations in place, there were improvements made in prize money. Yet, there are a lot more…
Inequalities are even amplified through sports media coverage in women’s sport. Looking back to the past 20 years, there is a significant decline in the proportion of coverage devoted to women’s sports on the televised news; and unfortunately, this trend is expected to continue in coming years if no transformation happens.
Let’s take a look at the data that basketball demonstrated. 570,000 watched the Women’s National Basketball Association finals with a 15 percent increase in viewership from previous years. This doesn’t sound bad at all, does it? But do you know how many people watched the Men’s National Basketball Association finals? 5,700,000, and yields a 68 percent increase. That is TEN times more! When you start to think about what made this tremendous difference, competitiveness, popularity, attractiveness… and many more may come up to mind. So does gender inequality, the biggest factor underlying beneath the surface, should be taken into consideration.
Cooky, Messner, and Hextrum, researchers that connect gender with the sociology of sports, tracked three local media in Los Angeles and the 2 biggest domestic ones in 6 weeks. They found out that silencing and marginalizing women’s sport is a common practice for news media to build their audiences. As sports live streams become more commercial recently, economic components are instrumental in coverage decisions. For example, advertisements during men’s sports games usually charge a higher price considering the pre-existing difference in numbers of audiences. After seeing high revenues and thus high profits obtained, media and television are more willing to broadcasting male sports games.
Despite coverage, there also has been a lack of women sports commentators. And oftentimes there has been a lack of respect towards female broadcasters even in front of the screen. At the same time, this sex-segregated phenomenon brought diversity to researchers’ attention. When we are talking about diversity, the race has also been a well-discussed social issue. And surprisingly, racial diversity has been well-presented in male sports reporters. Women, in general, do not fall into the category of minority, but this is by no means to ignore those inequalities thrown at their faces.
Fortunately, this society heard our voices, so some efforts were made during the reformation. One noteworthy development is that more female commentators are invited, especially for women’s sports events. But just as we can imagine, the broadcast of female sports is still far less advanced compare to males. I am referring to technology, media attendance, post-match interviews, etc. All of these are ways to support female athletes and show them respect. It can be hugely motivated knowing that someone out there cares about their performance. We do need more leaders to push this forward, so it is time for women to step up.
However, researchers also pointed out that changes in all perspectives are crucial: “For this to happen substantially, power relations and perceptions of gender will have to continue to change within sport organizations, with commercial sponsors who promote and advertise sports, and within the mass media.” However, it is even harder for shifts in perception to come all by themselves when economics becomes an essential incentive in decision making. The real challenge is never realizing the issue. Just like other social issues — education, equal pay, racisms — bringing up awareness is the beginning step. Transformations might take hundreds of years and are still not over. Therefore, pressures from various directions are necessary for pushing the transformation in sports (Cooky, Messner & Hextrum, 2013).
TRANSFORMATION: This Is the Only Way
Gender inequality in sports is demonstrated in numerous aspects, so it also comes down to the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles. More support and encouragement should be given to women in leadership roles within sport organizations. Spoor and Hoye, scholars in management, identify sexisms and discriminations along with other gender-related barriers at the beginning. But they successfully examined that supports can effectively increase organizational commitment and intentions to stay with the organization (Spoor & Hoye, 2014).
There is a remarkable distinction in organizational changes between accommodating women while keeping the organization’s existing gender perception and transformation of its gendered logic. Madeleine Pape, a former Olympian, draws the International Olympic Committee’s gendered equity to our attention. This organization defined gender equity with respect to women’s segregated participation instead of its binary and hierarchically gendered logic. However, the gendered logic, similar to characteristics, is inherent in the organization. It continues to shape organizational norms indirectly which keeps the male-dominated leadership. Transformations of gender logic to welcome more women in leadership roles can have women’s voices get heard in a formal way (Pape, 2019).
Further down the road, women in the boardroom can largely contribute to critical decision-making. Wicker, Feiler, and Breuer, German researchers of sports economics and sport management, observed the low gender diversity in the leadership roles of community sports clubs. However, researchers dig beyond the surface to see the correlation between women and organizational outcomes. The regression analyses well demonstrated that “board gender diversity significantly reduces human resource and financial problems”. Just like the researchers suggested, the result shown in this research may not be limited to non-profit community sports clubs. It can have a much bigger application, for example, professional clubs. Even though finance works differently in professional clubs because of sponsorships, it is still an important component of the organizational outcome to be considered because it is closely tied to athlete’s salaries (Wicker, Feiler & Breuer, 2020).
Social norms, including gender logic, do have an underestimated impact on inequality. To make real changes to people’s perceptions, transformation is necessary. Looking throughout the history of inequality in sports, remarkable reformations did contemporarily stimulate some changes. But all related components may lead to other similar problems sometime later. As we are taught, no athletes are built without persistent and comprehensive training. Similarly, no issue can be worked out without solving its fundamentals. So, there is one, and only one solution — transformation.
Reference
Shapiro, Leonard. (2021), “She’s aiming to play Division III football this fall — at defensive back.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/02/02/haley-van-voorhis-woman-college-football/
Pavlidis, Adele. (2018), “Making ‘Space’ for Women and Girls in Sport: an Agenda for Australian Geography.” Geographical Research 56(4):343–52. Doi: 10.1111/1745–5871.12302
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkveUzWlkHH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Cooky, Cheryl. Messner, Michael A.. Hextrum, Robin H. (2013), “Women Play Sport, But Not on TV: A Longitudinal Study of Televised News Media.” https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1177/2167479513476947
Spoor, J.R. and Hoye, R. (2014), “Perceived Support and Women’s Intentions to Stay at a Sport Organization.” https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1111/1467-8551.12018
Pape, Madeleine. (2019), “Gender Segregation and Trajectories of Organizational Change: The Underrepresentation of Women in Sports Leadership.” https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1177/0891243219867914
Wicker, Pamela. Feiler, Svenja. Breuer, Christoph. (2020), “Board gender diversity, critical masses, and organizational problems of non-profit sport clubs.” https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1080/16184742.2020.1777453
