Men vs. Women in Professional Sports

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.

Women have struggled for more than two centuries to be taken serious as professionals. There should not be a double standard in sports especially if it is loved and played by both genders. Over the years, females have competed against the stereotype of being too fragile both mentally and physically to play strenuous sports. The passion and work ethic of the female professional athletes is just as strong as the males and everyone should be treated equal and be able to have a chance at making a better living for themselves as well as their family. One area that still faces a continual struggle in sports is gender equality. Female

Most think the U.S. Woman’s National Team does not deserve equal pay. The number one reason for this opinion is due to the fact that people are not as interested in women’s soccer as they are in men’s, however the USWNT has become extremely popular over the past couple of years. In 2015, the Women’s World Cup final match broke the record for the most watched soccer game in United States history between men and women’s soccer. The average number of viewers for the entire match was around 25 million viewers. This number fluctuated over the course of the match and had a peak of 31 million viewers, which almost doubled the amount of viewers than the previous set record. The original record set by the USMNT during the 2014 World Cup at 18 million viewers was completely demolished because of the

Women sports have come a long way, since the days when women were only allowed

Twenty years ago the United States started their first men’s soccer league. The Major League Soccer (MLS) started out in 1996 with 10 teams and has continued to grow the sport of soccer and the league currently has 20 teams. On the other hand, women’s soccer started a league after the U.S. women’s national team won the World Cup in 1996, but they failed to bring in revenue for the federation. The women are now on their third league and are starting to bring in the same sales as the men. Currently, when it comes to the national teams, the women are bringing in money for the federation while the men are losing the federation money, because they are not winning as many games as

Men and women are psychologically different in many ways. Some of these differences include competitiveness, goal orientation, self-confidence, motivation, mental toughness, incentives, preferences, etc. According to Anne Bowker in Sports Participation and Self-Esteem, Men have an advantage over women in sports because they're more aggressive and have higher self-esteem (2003).

The latter conquest generated an unseen excitement about Women's sport in the general public. These events moved soccer from the back pages of a few big city newspapers to the covers of Newsweek, Time, People, and front of cereal boxes. Forty million people tuned in to Women's soccer team win the World Cup. This expansion of the U.S. soccer audience benefited not just the women, but the men's national team and Major League Soccer, too. These women showed great skill and determination even when they had not given obsession like Men's Team. The reward for their efforts was a gold medal victory with the winning goal.

Men believe women are weak and don’t have what it takes to play a sport. Women are not weak at all the most painful feeling (child birth) women have to do not men. And without women willing to go through that pain there would be no more human race, so if they can do that we can definitely play a sport. Still women would not let men keep them down, in the 1800’s and the 1900’s women started to form informal athletic clubs; which help states like new york and new Orleans get popular sports like tennis, croquet bowling and archery. Even though they were forming groups they did not have any women clubs of their own. But, some men’s clubs actually let women participate in their clubs, but would not let them have full membership. Also, to all the many discriminatory women had to fight against the biggest was if they became pregnant in school. They would be sent to alternative education programs and they had no way to fight this. In the early stages of women sports they had no respect.

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.

In every country, soccer stars are celebrated, they are young children’s’ heroes, and they inspire nations. Soccer is played in small villages in Africa, suburbs in America, and the arctic tundra of Russia, it can be played anytime, anywhere. It is the only sport that serves as a universal language, citizens in every country know the basics of soccer. Anyone, of any age, can play. It serves as a common connection for humanity and the players set examples for most of the world. If women are not being paid equally on the only platform that has the ability to reach the entire planet, it is no wonder that so many countries do not believe in women’s rights. However, if they were paid the same as men, they would be setting an example for the entire world. Many countries would begin to better understand that women are equal. After all, so many of life’s lessons are taught to children through games, especially games like soccer. This sport is a very rare, if not the only, opportunity to teach the entire world that women are just as equal as men, and not just on the soccer field. Women’s soccer could serve as the messenger to the world, and “kickoff” a new attitude for the equal treatment of women and really get the ball rolling on equal pay for women. This sport has the unique opportunity to use its influence to change attitudes that will seep

Through the movies viewed in this course this semester, we saw women who were able to play against men and still keep their femininity. Nothing is lost when playing sports not traditionally meant for a particular race or gender. Society must become more understanding when it comes to the sports different types of people play and hinder from stereotyping anyone when they participate and perform well in that sport.

Many people believe that mens basketball is better because it is more physical, more appealing and brings better excitement. While the men make millions dollars, the women make less than a teacher’s salary starting off in the WNBA. The system of professional sports has proven to discriminate against women not only in basketball but in all sports. Gender and race have a great deal to do with the discrimination. Money is the power that everyone reaches for. Without money, one has nothing to fall back on, because money determines how one will live their lives.

Men are more driven to play sports because they have more aggression and testosterone in their body. Men tend to work out their anger and aggression through sports. One of the sports that is seen as a very gender difference is football, but there are other sports that are male dominant, including hockey, boxing, and weight lifting. These sports require a lot of strength and energy, and their conditioning is more aggressive. People think women wouldn’t be able to do sports that require hard conditioning and the physical strain on the body. Women are seen as dainty and fragile, and as not being capable of handling pain well, and of getting hurt more easily and suffering worse injuries.

During this century women have been able to break out of the traditional female mold. Women have broken the chains that bond them to the home and have emerged into all sorts of male dominated arenas, including sports. Women have become athletes in their own right. In the last ten years there has been validation for the female athlete. The WNBA was created giving women a professional league in a mainstream traditionally male sport for the first time since the All American Girls Professional Baseball League went out of existence in the 1950s. And recently a woman made the cut and participated on the professional golf circuit with the men. Today, we see women athletes in the media regularly. Women's college basketball is given airtime on weekends just as men's is.

Yes, and one of the main reasons form that I see is that there are not as much female professional sports than male. When I look at college sport pages and you look at the sports there are more female sports than boys’ sports at some schools. Even though they have more sports to play most of them has no opportunity further they sport careers. In the Playing Unfair video it said “we infrequently see images of women athletes as athletes” this got me thinking of RSM 317 and the 6 ways the media portrays the female athlete. Out of the 6 ways you really do not see Athletic competence. Athletic competence is the way the athlete is portrayed in uniform, on court, or in action. An example of how men differs from women is http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.element/media/2.0/teamsites/warriors/images/CurrySICover_ForWeb.jpg and http://www.tampabay.com/resources/images/dti/rendered/2015/12/500198452_16443158_8col.jpg both of these photos are link to 2 sports illustrated cover magazines. One is Stephen Curry shooting a 3 point shot and the other is Serena Williams in a non-athletic cover shoot that has nothing to do with her sport.