Mia Hamm: The Most Successful Women's National Soccer Team

It is true that before Title IX, any positive images of female athletes were relatively few and far between, except for the rare Olympian such as Peggy Fleming or Nadia Comaneci. Title IX has substantially increased the availability of equal resources for female athletes relative to males on campus. However, parity has not been achieved in terms of the public's interest and respect for women's sports. Even today, the main excitement is over the NCAA men's tournament, not the women's. Team sports where women are celebrated in the U.S. are in low-priority sports like soccer; while some women in individual sports have certainly received media

When it comes to sports men and women are rarely given equal opportunities to excel. This is the case in soccer specifically, as many individuals over look women’s soccer. Women are having to play on turf fields which is causing more injuries compared to men playing on natural grass. Men also make more money per match and they receive money if they lose, whereas the women do not receive any money if they lose a match. While women are becoming more successful, the men’s team has been around longer and bring in more media coverage and endorsements for the league. Despite the discrepancies found in media coverage of both teams, the US soccer federation and Federation International Football Association should provide equal opportunities for both men’s and women’s soccer teams.

From a young age, children are conditioned to always think about what they want to be when they grow up. Many of them dream to be a ballerina, firefighter, or an astronaut. With age comes maturity, and those aspirations pass, but simultaneously new, more realistic ones arise. To reach these new goals, these children work toward their dream through dedication, which can be seen in the studying or training they do. In today’s society females have more opportunity to do what they dream. There are young women who are assiduously working to get a college degree and a steady job. Then, there are also women who are training to become a professional athlete, with the aspiration of becoming a member of the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT). In today’s society, women can pursue their goals, however, if compared to men’s sports, there can be differences seen that keep women from reaching full potential, equality, and their dreams.

This article talked about the daunting unequal media coverage in sports of male sports teams in comparison to females.They researched the true differentiations of coverage between men and women sports. The actual percentage difference of coverage of male vs female sports discovered in their research truly is unfathomable. Men’s sports receive 96.3% of the airtime, women’s sports 1.6% and gender neutral topics were 2.1%. When you think back about twenty years ago and the coverage of media people tend to think that America is generally trending positively forward, however that is not the case for the coverage of women's athletics. It has actually gone down since then. Although on the scarce occasion that they are feature in the news, more often than not they are conveyed in the stereotypical way: as wives, girlfriends, or mothers. When media is highlighting these aspects instead of their talent, hard work or success it takes away from their image as an athlete and it demonstrating that it is acceptable to do so in society. However if male athlete achieved equal success and he was a father, that

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.

Despite the gains made by successful female athletes in the era, women were forced into two categories; hot or not, no matter their talents. WNBA was ignored because of the sex appeal, as well as in tennis and soccer. A soccer player, Brandi Chastain changed the way people watched after a game when she took off her shirt after winning her World Cup goal over China in penalty kicks on July 10, 1999. She did this because she was just celebrating and it just happened, she didn’t mean anything by it. The crowd remembered her boring black sports bra instead of them winning the championship, because it was more

The United States (U.S.) Women's Soccer Team has become more profitable, more watched, and more successful than the United States Men’s Soccer Team. They have gotten to where they are at now not through money but through their struggle to play the sport they love. U.S. Women’s Soccer started from the crazy thought of women playing a men’s sport to a dominating spot at the top of this nation’s soccer winning game after game. Still no matter if they are more profitable, more watched, and more successful, the U.S. Women’s soccer team is extremely underpaid compared to the men’s team. The U.S. Men’s team even gets paid more just for showing up to their games than the women do to win major championships (Zirin).

In today’s world, men’s sports seem to always be in the spotlight while women’s sports do not draw much attention, as if women who play sports are not taken seriously. This happens on all levels of sports, and I have personally experienced it myself through basketball in high school. While the gym would be full for any of the boys’ games, our games had very little support with almost empty bleachers. When it comes to the professional level, when women’s sports do get covered by the media, most people judge female athletes more on their looks rather than their athletic skill, which is negative and unfair.

Women have come a long way, and are actually beginning to find a more significant place in sports media. Men are starting to take women more seriously?both on the field and in the news station. I was ecstatic to read a SI letter to the editor, written by a man that read, ??Maybe we should show a little respect for the women?s accomplishment? (SI, November 2004)?it gave me hope. Through this analysis, I gained a stronger appreciation for sports media, and became more optimistic about women

Women’s soccer is heading towards being the most popular girls sport in the US. The US Women’s National Team is the best women’s soccer team in the world, but that’s not a coincidence. 1.5 million girls play soccer in the United States which is almost all of the population of women’s soccer players in the world. Also, interest in women’s soccer in the US in rising.

The 2015 Women’s World Cup was a big step forward for women’s soccer around the world. The treatment of women in general has not been where it should be. In today’s modern world, there is a huge pay differential in the work force. In both collegiate and pro sports, there is also an unnecessary gap between men and women’s sports. In women’s soccer specifically, the women have always received the short end of the stick. FIFA has viewed the women’s team as not equal as the men’s. The world’s view of women’s sports shows that women are still thought to be inferior to men. The field conditions of men’s soccer versus women’s soccer are not equal, either. Women have not been treated the same as men in international soccer since the beginning of the

From the three network affiliates they studied, they found that 96.3 percent of the coverage was for men’s sports and women only received 1.6 percent (Messner and Cooky 4). When analyzing the coverage of Sports Center, which is arguably the most popular sports show on television, they found that women still only received just 1.4 percent of their coverage (4). This study also found that 100 percent of the Sports Center programs had a lead story that was about men’s sports (4). Even the most renowned and credible sports show, which only shows sports all year long, does not even provide women’s sports with equal attention. Even more shocking than this was that the study also revealed that reporters devoted more coverage to men’s sports that were out of season than they did women’s sports that were actually in season (4). This can be extremely disrespectful to female athletes when their sport is pushed aside and ignored so that a men’s sport that is not even being played can be covered by the media. These women put all their effort into performing their sport at the highest level, but their media attention gets replaced by men who are in their off-season.

The adverse topic of women in sports stems from society's disregard to viewing women as persons. Women were, and in other parts of the world continue to be viewed as property of men and have no significant role in society. Being allowed into the Olympics was a step in the right direction for women across the world, but it was meager attempt equality. Women were still restricted by what events they were allowed to compete in, how they were trained and coached and even limited as to what they could wear. A woman’s femininity played a large role in the way they were perceived by society; weak. Women were seen as incommensurate to men and it was something that has taken us centuries to reverse. Today, women are given the rights we should have

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.

Similarly women are receiving less attention and media coverage than men. When someone puts on the television and turns on a sports game, it is most likely going to be a men’s sport. Even when females get their coverage, the commentators are usually talking about their body rather than their skill. In an article, “Examination of Gender Equality and Female Participation in Sport” by Joshua A. Senne, he talks about how women are referred by their appearance rather than their skill. During a study about the media, the commentators mostly talked about the women’s hair, make-up, and body figure, rather than their ability. This also occurred after the 1996 summer Olympics, where there was a lack of promotion for female athletes and the marketing of women’s sports. These athletes were also only recognized by their physical appearance instead of their ability. The tone of these broadcasters was proved in a study that men 's events were the standard in the society rather than the women’s. They would list the event as “other” rather than saying it is a women’s sport. In the study that was conducted, it states that the gender marketing showed that the woman sports were marked as “other” on an average of 27.5 times, but it 's never happened in the men’s sporting events (Senne). There is still coverage of women 's sports, but it rarely covered. The title IX project made a pie chart about the comparison of men’s and women’s sports media coverage on the show SportsCenter on