Women's Roles In The WNBA

In today's society women are able to become anything they wish. Generations ago women did not have the privilege to become what they truly desired compared to the women of today. Although women can become anything they desire, they cannot succeed financially. Women are still underpaid in many areas, especially in Pro Sports. The disparity in pay for women compared men's pro sports is absurd. Female athletes have also seen greater success in sports as well and have been belittled and condemned of the rewards they rightfully deserve for the achievements in their sports. It is simple, gender should not define pay in pro sports, especially if they both have equal to or greater success in their respected sports.

while women in world sports are often being misjudged. Male- dominant sports culture often come from the way women in society are viewed. (Brittney Griner leads men and women in the big twelve.) “It’s not how big you are it’s how big you play”. Female sports are highly underestimated. Watch and support women's sports because they work just as hard as the men teams do. “It’s as though the producers and commentators are thinking, ‘If we can't say anything sexist, then we can't say anything at all about women's sports”. Networks struggle to understand how much trouble these female athletes go through, just for there gender let alone being a athlete.

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.

Continuing to brain wash the young men today with the “sports is a mans world” mentality only helps to repeat the cycle of nearly oppressing women in the industry. It keeps men feeling secure when it comes to their masculinity, yet making a woman’s fight for respect a never ending struggle.

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.

It’s no secret that WNBA players are grossly under paid in comparison to NBA players. This article will truly show you how bad this wage gap is. Sylvia Fowles is the reigning WNBA MVP and a huge contributor for the Minnesota Lynx (2017 champs). Just to give you some numbers of what exactly she did last season, she had the top field-goal percentage, second in rebounds per game, second in blocks per game and overall the fifth leading scorer in the league. Sylvia got paid an estimated $109,000 this past year with certain small bonuses coming in for being a top performer. In comparison, Kevin Durant, the reigning 2016-2017 NBA MVP made an estimated $26.54 million, with bonuses of course. How can it be 2018 and the top WNBA players only make a fraction

These problems have solutions but the athletes and staff need to push towards to fixing them, harsher punishments for offenders, need to promote women’s sport equally to men, highlight successful women athletes, bring awareness to discrimination - stop negative tweets, articles, etc, and equal pay or at least equal the pay more. There is no justifying domestic violence. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said in the article, “We Need to Stamp Out Misogyny in Sports”, First, we need to address why they don't want to watch. This goes back to cultural biases. If we don't value girls' sports in middle school and high school, then we don't grow up to value them as professional athletes. And by value, I mean make athletic opportunities available, pay coaches equally, and promote female sports with the same vigor as we do male sports. (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)”, if in the male mind that women sports are just as challenging and important as men’s then the publicity problem would not exist. Kareem Abdul-Jabaar made a valid point when he said, “Many will argue that the pay difference is the result of free market supply and demand. More people want to see men play professional basketball than want to see women play, so the players are paid accordingly. You can't argue economics. There is truth to this. You can't force people to attend a sporting event if they don't want to (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)”, but there is a way to change this: give women more hype, promote the games better, and show off highlights to catch the audience

Astonishingly, sexism still exists and in 2002, columnist Stephen Moore expressed, allowing women to play in March Madness is “annoying” and the tournament would be better without them (McDonagh & Pappano, p. 237). He believes women in sports intrude and ruin “precious moments of bonding” (McDonagh & Pappano, p. 237). This all begins with the idea men are better than women. These mindsets believe men have superior talent and therefor deserve to have their own sports. They should not have to share with the lesser sex.

Women’s teams are just as good and better as men’s teams. Did you know that U.S. Women's National Soccer team has won three world cups and the men one none. Also in 2008 Danica Patrick won the Japan Indy 300 and became the first woman to win a major auto race. There was a tennis match in 1973 called “Battle of the sexes” and it was Jean King vs Bobby Rings and King won. After that a New York Times writer wrote “She convinced skeptics that female athletes can survive a pressured-filled stadiums just like men. This proves that girls can handle being in front of a huge crowd and win not just because they let them win but because they work hard to win.

I think that the only way for the WNBA to improve on their attendance is to interact with the fan such as host events and enhance social media presence, which could bring more of a spotlight to the WNBA. What really makes the NBA so successful is the media because a person might not be a fan of basketball ball, but they can tell you who LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry are. What kind of plans do Borders have to increase the attendance of games?

Gender is not a control variable in the proposed study, as the purpose is to explore the role of euphoria rather than gender. Nonetheless, the fact that men, and in particular young men, are the riskiest financial decision-makers provides a helpful background context to any study of NBA players’ financial decision-making. NBA players are even more likely to possess the kinds of hormonal characteristics that underlie men’s riskier financial decision-making in Powell and Ansic’s model.

Sexism limits our country. In a world where sexism still exists, women face challenges every day as they choose to embark in athletic activities. Even with the efforts of Title IX, which was established in 1972, there is not equality in sports for men and women. Sexism is real with stereotypes and discrimination on the basis of sex. Even with the high level of success reached by numerous female athletes of many different sports, male athletes always seem to have the upper hand. Whether it is pay, media, support, gear, or playing grounds, one sex always has the better of the two. Male athletes dominate a field that truly is shared by both sexes. What if we treated male athletes the way we treat female athletes? That is a world hard to imagine, and honestly, it shouldn't be. Through female athletes sharing their stories of unfair treatment and pay, sexism and generations of inequality in sports can be overcome.

Basketball is one of the biggest sports in America. It is also popular around the worlds. Men’s basketball, in particular, is given much more preference in American society. Many would argue that the comparison of the two simply boils down to sexism in sports, where people downgrade the strength and athletic ability of women in our society according to typical gender roles. However, there may be more confounding factors that are generally overlooked.

It isn’t just racial inequality that continues to exist and squander sports, moreover, gender inequality continues to demolish our shared collaboration to play sports for, in simplest terms, the pure love of them. When people say, “The World Cup” they generally mean the male world cup, and a lot of sports stations don’t even televise the female equivalent. There is also the sheer fact that the WNBA isn’t nearly as popularized

Astonishingly, sexism still exists in 2016 and yet in 2002, columnist Stephen Moore wrote allowing women to play in March Madness is “annoying” and the tournament would be better without them (McDonagh & Pappano, page 237). He believes women intrude and ruin “precious moments of bonding” (McDonagh & Pappano, page 237). This all begins with the idea men are better than women. These mindsets believe men have superior talent and therefor deserve to have their own sports. They should not have to share with the lesser sex.