Women Using Their Platform
In today’s society, sports is one of the most impactful ways to spread information and opinions on important events that are happening around the country. Athletes who use their platforms hope to spread change through their opinion on events that are currently happening. Many male athletes have a bigger platform because male sports are viewed as a more fun and entertaining game to watch. Very few women even have a platform to use. If women want to be successful in the athletic world, they need to learn how to use their platforms.
The problem of inequality between men and women’s platforms start when female athletes are young. Most of the time, young women do not have an athlete similar to them to look up to. Women also tend to have a lack of access to sports. For example, females have 1.3 million fewer opportunities to play high school sports than males have. Also, the sport dropout rate for girls is six times greater than the dropout rate for males. The lack of physical education in schools and limited opportunities to play sports in both high school and college also causes many females to not participate in sports. There is also an additional lack of access to adequate playing facilities near athletes homes. This makes it more difficult for girls to engage in sports. Over the past decade, womens sports has increased in popularity which has helped gain interest in many female sports. This shows after the high school level because women now make up over half of all college athletes. The only problem is they still do not get an equal portion of athletic opportunities. Women’s college sports teams almost always receive less funding than their male counterparts. The participation problem has largely improved, at least at the college level, but there is still the issue of recognition, funding, and equal pay at professional level.
One issue many women try to use their platform for is trying to get equal pay between the genders. Breanna Stewart, an American professional basketball player for the Seattle Storm of the Women’s National Basketball Association stated her opinion on this issue when she said, “We’re involved in it. As women in sport we are still trying to fight to have that equality in the game in terms of pay, viewers, status. While we are fighting for ourselves, we will fight as an ally for other issues too. We are all in this together.” Breanna Stewart is just one example on how women are trying to break barriers in our society with using in there voices on their platforms, that not many women have. She strongly believes all women should come together and start using their platforms to help diminish the issues faced by female athletes. She also believes that a domino effect will happen if women start speaking out about their issues. Once one woman sees another state her opinions, many others will follow. They will know it is possible for them to get their voice heard if they only try but many women need that extra push to finally state their opinions on important topics, like equal pay. Her main goals for finally speaking out about what she believes is getting was to get the younger generation in our country not afraid to speak out about what they believe in and help them know only good things will come from speaking your mind to the public.
Another female athlete that has been using in her platform for good is Serena Williams. She is a barrier-breaking female athlete. One example of this is when she teamed up with nike to make a commercial about inspiring young women to “dream crazier” in a just do it advertisement. The ad ended with Williams saying, “So, if they want to call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do.” Williams has frequently called out sexism in her sport and beyond. She is fighting for women’s rights throughout all athletic events but, during one of her tennis matches, Williams was fined $17,000 for three violations during the U.S. Opens women’s single final. The tournament referee’s office deducted $10,000 for verbally abusing the umpire, $4,000 for receiving a warning about coaching, and $3,000 for breaking a racket from Williams’ $1.85 million prize money. She got fined the $10,000 when she called the umpire a thief and ended up taking the game. This action made Williams i feel like it was a sexist remark against her. She elaborates on this when she stated “He’s never took a game from a man because they said ‘thief’. For me it blows my mind. But I’m going to continue to fight for women and to fight for us to have equal rights.” Having the chance for equal play among genders is what almost every female athlete wants. When she stated how a man would never get a game taken for doing what she did shows how big this problem is. Many females get punished because the umpires or referees think girls are to dramatic but, when men show their emotions, it is never punished in the same way Williams was punished. Men break rackets and talk back to the line judges just like Williams did but instead of getting their game taken, they play on. This happens in almost every sport which is why this issue has become a worldwide problem.Almost every female athlete has their own opinion on how unequal the sports are between genders but not many share their opinions. Williams is one of the few athletes to do so and it has helped other athletes to come out and share their opinions.
In conclusion, equality for all takes each of us making an effort to share opinions on controversial topics. Recently, many male athletes have started to join women in this fight for equality because of how big of a problem it has become. Our society and world will always be growing, but our ways of thinking need to grow and adapt with our changing environment. Equality between genders is a highly visible problem and needs to be treated like other major problems in our world. More women and girls need to feel empowered to participate and continue t share their opinions on these topics starting from a young age. Equality will always be a problem because it takes time and a lot of people to stand together including women role models for young girls in sports to look up to. Once young girls have this role model, they can start to create a platform for themselves to share their ideas and opinions on problem to help the athletic world.
-Allison Bryan
