What are the disadvantages of opportunities of being a woman involved in sports? People may argue that the gender of women has come a long way with more opportunity and there have been improvements in certain ways, but nothing that has brought true equity.
Within the sports community, men’s sports already have an advantage over women due to better pay and more attention, but what about opportunities with lower pay wages? From a business perspective, there are fewer spots.
Opportunities are limited for women because of the higher pay coaches and administrators get for male-dominated sports. Female sports are typically the first to see a budget cut.
How does this affect young girls in sports? By the age of 14 girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys due to several factors such as social expectations, lack of investment in quality programs, and more. Young girls are the future of women in sports, but the lack of opportunity has destroyed the love and enjoyment that young girls have for sports.
To be successful is to be seen as a man who has higher quality sports commentating, video production, and higher quality coverage. What about attendance at soccer games at Sutton? The difference in student attendance is drastic. The girl’s soccer fans fill up about two rows and the boys’ soccer fans fill up about seven rows. Why is this when the girl’s soccer team has won the past four state titles?
What did equipment look like when women’s sports first started to build a program? They were only provided with a set of dumbbells and yoga mats, whereas the men were provided with multiple power racks and dumbbells for powerlifting. How was that fair? It’s not.
Women are always stereotyped as weak and not meant to excel in a sport. So they are giving fewer opportunities and ways to succeed, making success unlikely.
Just at our school, we see heavy sexism within softball and baseball. The baseball team has better bleachers, dugouts, and scoreboards and equipment. The girl’s varsity soccer teams has won states and C-Mass for the past four consecutive years, but the soccer team doesn’t have a good field, and we are always stuck trying to raise money to be able to rent out other schools turf fields simply to practice. The girl’s team also does not have good soccer equipment.
The unfortunate thing is that girls get less no matter how many wins they bring home for the town of Sutton. This hurts our opportunities to be successful, but girls make it work and push through despite being told and shown that they are second best to boys.
Men who play sports and excel have many more opportunities than women who are strong athletes. The NBA brings in a lot of viewers and make massive amounts of money. Within the NBA and the WNBA, there are drastic money differences, The players in the NBA are making significantly more than what a woman makes. This shows that men are more important and that feeling trickles down to the youngest athletes.
Women are as good as men in athletics and many other ways, and it is time for everyone to not only acknowledge this, but to make things equal.
