Gender In Sports Analysis Essay

Women in professional sports fits into the Sex and Power: Global Gender Inequality class because many female athletes have experienced the inequalities in a professional sports setting. Female athletes are being put down by gender inequalities, causing less females participating in athletic programs. Women athletes are being paid less than their male counterparts. Along with being paid less, female and males are receiving unequal benefits in the form of scholarship, media coverage, transportation, and stadium conditions. The professional sport’s world is filled with the obsession of body image and sexuality. Through this obsession, female athletes have been abused from the people they trust the most. There is an increasing inequality in women’s professional sports in the form of pay, sexuality, and abuse.

Woman’s sustained involvement in ‘male’ team sports has only occurred relatively recently. Woman’s participation in sport has been blunted by

Over a millennium, women and men sports have never been viewed the same. When sports were first originated it was only meant for men to compete. During this time, women were forbidden to compete. Woman were always underestimated or never taken for serious. Even to this day women sports are still being seen the same way, especially in high school sports. One school in particular that will be focused on in this paper is in the city of Saint Paul called Washington Technology Magnet School. This school is a victim just like many other schools out there that women 's sports are not getting enough fundings compared to the men 's programs they have because woman sports are being considered inferior. One way to solve this problem, in this

Females interests of competitive sports have gained the attention of the College and

Money is usually a problem with many things in life, one of them also happens to be gender equality. Colleges and universities spend an average of $1.6 million on the men’s athletics program. Yet, the women’s athletic teams receive nearly half that amount (Almond 2). Women should not be receiving half the amount that a men’s team gets just because their sports are less ‘popular’ than men’s. A school’s main objective may be to promote the men’s team first, to get out of a deficit. Then they may be able to finance the women’s team with the money they make from the men’s sporting events. That is not an equal or fair solution. It would take years to pay off a deficit and then sufficiently finance the female athletic programs. Numerical equality would take a vast quantity of public tax money in addition to the financial assistance that now pays for most of women’s sports. Universities increased its support of women’s athletics over the years but according to Ellen Voelz,

In the Journal “Sport and Society: Annual Review of Sociology” written by Robert E. Washington and David Karen they talk about gender and sports in one section of their Journal. In this section the author addresses masculinity in sports and the attempts of Title IX to try and make sports equal in the sense that if women make up 40% of the athlete population they should receive 40% of the resources. However, this is not the case “The most recent data (Suggs 2000) reveal that in 1998–1999 women made up 42% of Division I athletes, received 42% of scholarship monies, 31% of recruiting budgets, 34% of coaching-salary budgets, and 33% of total operating expenses. According to Andrew Zimbalist (2000:B9), women “still play in inferior facilities, stay in lower-caliber hotels on the road, eat in cheaper restaurants, benefit from smaller promotional budgets, and have fewer assistant coaches.” (Washington and Karen, 2001) This long quote showcases that although women are starting to get what they deserve when it comes to a the percentage of Athletics that they comprise it is still not up to par. Although it is not technically salary, the gap in scholarship money and money spent of faculty for female athletes showcases how money it’s sports always goes to the male athletes no matter at what level. In a more recent example that further pushes the points that were made in Washington and Karen’s journal would be the U.S. Women’s Soccer team compared to the U.S. Men’s Soccer team. Both

It is the year 2016, the United States has had its first African American president, gay marriage is legalized, and women and men are supposedly seen as equals in the workplace and educational institutions. It is important to note that while steps to equality have been made through the Equal Pay Act and Title IX, gender discrimination is still prevalent in society. The NCAA reported since 1988, in the 2007-2008 academic year, institutions yielded a net gain of 2, 342 women’s teams added to varsity rosters (Pickett, Dawkins, Braddock, 2012). There are now more than 174,000 female collegiate athletes thanks to Title IX (Koller, 2010). Though there has been a substantial increase in female athletic participation, this number is still nowhere near the participation of male athletes. Many women still do not participate in sports due to discrimination and the concept of equality in Title IX could potentially affect women’s interest in athletic participation.

Many people enjoy watching sports, but primarily men received the chance to participate in athletics until the passage of Title IX. The MARGARET Fund of the National Women’s Law Center (2016) states that “only 1 in 27 girls played high school sports”

Women’s equality is an issue that has been around for awhile. While women have been given many rights to increase equality, including the right to vote and go to college, the problem hasn’t completely vanished. One area that still sees this is in sports. Women’s sports do not draw nearly as many fans and are not covered in the media as much as men’s sports, pay differences between male and female athletes are large, and female athletes have to wait longer to start their professional career than men, which risks their professional career before it even starts.

Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational programs, but it had the greatest impact in increasing the opportunity for females in sports. The participation opportunities for females in sports are at its highest rate ever with 9,581 women’s intercollegiate teams in the NCAA in 2014, an increase of 307 since 2012 (Acosta & Carptenter, 2014). Despite the increased number of female

Title IX consists of just thirty-seven words, and it is these words that have transformed the dynamics within the female athletic sphere in the United States. Although the federal law was initially envisioned to assist women in academia, it is currently renowned for its profound impact on American sports (Ware). It is an irrefutable fact that Title IX has vastly increased women’s participation in sports: the law has reportedly increased female participation rates within colleges six-fold from 1972—the year it was passed—to today (Cooky). Opportunities for women in sports have never been greater. However, despite the progress made by Title IX, it faces deep challenges in its quest to achieve true equality. Women’s participation rates in sports still lag far behind men, and one cannot ignore this disturbing reality (“National Coalition”). Thus, the question as to whether or not Title IX has achieved gender equity is highly debatable. This paper intends to understand the shortcomings of Title IX’s goal in attaining true equality through analysis of its limitations. Specifically, this essay will explore women’s history in sports prior to Title IX, the importance of sports for females, an overview of Title IX’s statute, and an analysis of the law’s various issues. To narrow the scope of my essay, I will focus mainly on intercollegiate sports.

The sports world has been a new area where women are recognized. In previous times women’s sports were almost non-existent. In schools many girl teams did not receive adequate funds for uniforms and equipment. Boys sports were much more popular, such as football or basketball. If a girl wanted to play a guy sport she would be labeled as a

While female student participation in college athletics is increasing, it does not come close to men’s participation or finances. Female participation has increased by 3,550 while men’s participation increased by 6,431 almost double of their female counterparts (American Association of University Women, 2013). In addition, the NCAA Gender Equity Report shows that in the 2009-2010 school year, the total revenue for men was $5,519,600, while women’s was significantly lower at $2,622,900 (NCAA, 2010). Although Title IX has provided opportunity for both sexes in college athletics, male participation is still dominating. However, recent trends are indicating that athletic programs have taken action to promote female

Race, gender, history and sexual orientation play major roles in women's participation in sport. Through out the history of women in sport, opportunity has increased. Many athletes and coaches are presented with the issue of sexual orientation throughout their sporting career. Regardless of sexual orientation, all female athletes are affected by heterosexism. One's racial or ethnicity background greatly shapes the experience they may have in sport. This essay explores the many issues women in sport face today.

In the last one hundred years women have made tremendous inroads in many facets of life. Of that there can be little doubt. Women may now hold jobs, own property and participate in professional sports. Today women can compete in sports, once a vestige of male domination; there is now room for women in that arena. But even today women in sports are not portrayed in the same light as their male counterparts. To a large degree this is because of today's cultural ideal of women.