Female Athlete Argument Essay

American athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias earned more medals, broke more records, and swept more tournaments in more sports than any other athlete, male or female, in the twentieth century. Within recent years, women have made huge strides in the world of sports and athletics but are still not getting proper recognition for the time, effort, and talent these women have put into their sport. Gender equality is a major problem in athletics, Title XI, sports media, and the sexualisation of females involved in athletics shows the clear divide in gender equality amongst men’s and women’s sports.

There are a lot of flaws in sports particularly high-performance sport that leads to men always getting the better outcome whether it be prize money/awards or even just recognition there is a lack of support behind women’s sport. To this day I still ponder where this segregation may have come from, was it something that occurred in the past that lead to bigger problems now or has it always been like

Lopiano complains that there’s too much of a salaries gap between man and women playing the same sports. “The right to play has been established. However, the issue that has been confronted is the barrier to being treated equally when it comes to money” (Lopiano 1). Most people will say women’s tennis matches are more exciting than men’s matches; men’s victory purses are still considerably higher than women’s victory purses. Top women tennis players earned 59 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. The average total purse was $63,031,000.00 for top men players and $41,000,000.00 for top women players (Daniel Frankl 2). In soccer, the Women’s World Cup soccer team was promised $12,500 if they won compared to the $300,000 male players were to receive. The payout for women players was increased to $50,000 because fans protested the unfair payout gap between the male and female players (Lopiano 1); it’s still 1/6 the payout

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.

To this day, women still aren't equally paid as men are even though they do the same work. In sports women work and try really hard to win and find themselves a living by

There are hundreds and thousands of athletes all around the world but the main problem in the athlete world is gender inequality, women are not shown equal as men. They are discriminated in many ways such as pay, employment opportunities, value of women 's sport, media coverage etc. Despite the federal law passed called Title IX that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination." there is still gender inequality women are considered less than men. No matter what happens people will always have inequality against men and women because of the environment they live in and how they were raised. Women are

There is, of course, a huge difference between the ways women are typically supposed to act and what is expected from a typical athlete. Whereas women are expected to comply to their gender role prescribing passivity and compliance, athletes are connoted with an aggressive, competitive nature. Furthermore, society trains women to be ashamed of their bodies and supplies an unrealistic ideal body type and encourages restricting feminine clothing, whereas athletes must have a keen understanding and appreciation of their bodies. In this way, athletes are implicitly coded as male. Though women and men can both be great athletes, of course, gender roles limit the social image and expectations for individuals based

Female players have to train just as hard as their counterparts yet their efforts are not met with equal pay. The sad truth is that women’s games don’t garner enough media attention and sponsorships thus leaving them with less money to take home. If we as a society supported women’s sports in the same manner as we do male sports, women would have the opportunity to earn the same as men.

Women first started taking great strides in professional sports during World War II. When the male professional baseball players went off to war, a group of team owners started a professional league for woman (the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League). This league turned out to be successful. After the men came back from war, however the woman’s league could no longer sustain itself financially and had to shut down. Over the past twenty years, however there have been more and more professional women sports leagues opening and prospering. One such league is the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association), while the league opened being financially backed by the male league (NBA) over its first five years it has become a financial success with high profits and good TV ratings on major and cable networks. Some woman’s leagues even become just as or ever more successful that there male counterparts. An example of such a league in the women’s professional tennis tour which lately has had better television ratings and draws more fans than its male counterpart. In 2001 for the first time, ever the woman’s Final at the US Open Tennis Championship (the tours most prestigious played in the United States) was broadcast on a major television network (NBC) in primetime (8pm). Media coverage of women's sports is considered important because it increases the level of

This study reveals much about the attitudes that persist in society today regarding sport and gender. Early on, sport was created to serve men, evolving as a celebration of maleness, valuing strength, power, and competition. It idealized, promoted, and rewarded successful, elite athletes, established “the dream” as a professional career in sports, and viewed mass participation in sport as a tool to weed out the weak (Hill, 1993). In contrast, women’s sports originated to “address the expressed need for healthful exercise” (Huckaby, 1994). Unlike the competitive warrior mode

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.

In 1972 Title IX is passed creating opportunities for girls and women to participate in sport. In 1973 Billy Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in the "battle of the sexes" tennis match. In 1973 the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) awards the first academic scholarships to women athletes at the collegiate level. Jackie Joiner-Kersee sets the new heptathlon world record and wins a second gold medal in the long jump in 1988. In 1991 Judith Sweet becomes the first woman president of the NCAA. Soccer and softball make it into the Olympic debut in 1996. In 1997 professional basketball debuts with the WNBA and ABL. In 1999 the U.S. Women's Soccer team defeats China for the World Cup win in a record seating of 90,185 people (Cohen, viii).

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

But even today women athletes are not on equal footing with men. Women are not permitted to be masculine, they can be athletes but they need to keep their femininity intact. Even a great athlete like Babe Didrickson was forced to change her image to suit our culture's sense of what a woman should be. And while a women may be given endorsements she is expected to look a certain way we she does them. She may sweat on the field or the court but not on camera.

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