Soc 105 - Gender Equality in Sports

Gender Equality in Sports

Lisa Key, Dorothy Nelson, Sasha Starnes, Megen Smith

SOC/105

December 6, 2012

Kevin Riggs

Gender Equality in Sports

Many females grow up with a dream of making sports not only a hobby but also a profession. This is an unrealistic and largely unobtainable dream in many different countries, due to many reasons. Although unobtainable, in some countries, the United States essentially seems to have overcome this hardship and women participate in many professional sports. Some say this is a requirement and that having leagues of multiple sports for both genders shows that in the sports community, there is equality, and bias on gender is an issue of the past. However, is it really?

Women for years have been vying for a viewpoint as equal competition for men, especially in sports. Unfortunately, society fails to measure women’s abilities on the same scale as men’s abilities. We can see this in publicity, marketing, and even when watching the games themselves. Men’s sports play on multiple networks and receive a much wider coverage than women’s sports. Men’s sports are often idolized for the action and skills one may display in the game, while many times the reporting of women’s sports lack the same level of detail and respect in the delivery. The best statement is in a quote from a study done called sports, media and stereotypes it states “although the media coverage of women seriously needs to be magnified and multiplied, it is of vital importance to do this by multiplying the exemplary reporting already being done, not by magnifying the content of stereotypes and sexism” (Culture Shock, 2011) . The time has come for media to give women’s sports the coverage women deserve and to show the same level of respect. This will not be easy, there are more men sports commentators than women and there are more men sports critics than women in the field. The views are bias in nature and will continue to be bias until the roles are more diverse.

Marketing, publicity, and respect, these are just a few of the factors that are evident and show the lack of equality in society’s sports community. Let us take a deeper look into some of these sports and see some of the positives as well as the negatives. Take a moment to look at things such as pay grade, mixed gender leagues, and history to name a few.

Golf has been around for at least 500 years. It is a belief that golf was born when shepherds who were out tending their flocks began to tire from boredom and saw the development a game by using their wooden crooks to