Gender Equality for Women in Sports

Be it in terms of salaries or media coverage, the disparity in treatment is beyond negligible, far from it, there exists a gap so big it qualifies to be called a rift. The situation may be improving now due to the efforts of movements such as UNESCO which recognized sports as a right in 1978 (‘The Gender Equality Debate; Women in Sport’, 2018) and the general outcry by the public and the athletes themselves but there is still much to be desired.

Let’s take The United States into consideration.

Her research states that 40% of their total sportspersons are women they only receive about 6-8% of media coverage (‘The Gender Equality Debate; Women in Sport’, 2018). To put this into perspective, we may ask ourselves when we last watched a women’s athletic competition. The answer to this question reflects how little coverage women get in terms of sports. Despite UNESCO recognizing sports as a right, as stated, the Women’s World Cup was founded in 1991, a full 13 years later.

While it is true that organizing sports competitions take a substantial amount of planning and resources, 13 years is an awfully long time. This, therefore, shows that the resources needed to establish the Women’s World Cup are not inadequate supply and the whole matter is not given as much time and effort as are men’s competitions. The last Women’s World Cup was in 2015 but that may not be common knowledge owing to how little hype surrounded the event compared to the men’s World Cup 3 years earlier, which even received a catchy theme song of its own.

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(‘The Gender Equality Debate; Women in Sport’, 2018) goes on to state that sports scholarship programs offer $179 million dollars more to male sportspersons than they do to their female counterparts. Colleges only spend about 24% of their athletics operations budgets on female sports and an insufficient 16% on recruiting female sportspeople. If that were not enough, only 33% of their athletic scholarship budget goes to women. Imagine how many talented women are left out in the dark, being overlooked by their male counterparts.

The last Women’s World Cup Final ranked as the most-watched soccer event in The United States even compared to the Men’s games and yet the players did not receive equal recompense to their male counterparts despite actually winning the event, this being just a small factor in this issue. The USA Women’s National Team has won 3 World Cups and 4 Olympic Championships not to mention a number of other regional competitions making them the most decorated women’s national team in the world and despite all their glory they still receive less than the players on the men’s team. The Men’s team has only won 5 CONCACAF Gold Cups (‘Awards’, 2018), which does not compare the accomplishments of the women’s team.

The problem may seem to be isolated to only soccer and The United States but this could not be further from the truth. Other sports also have this problem, for example, tennis. (Cox, 2018) finds that Nick Krygios made $83,650 when he won the Brisbane International while Julia Goerges walked away with about half that figure, $43,000, for an event in Auckland of the same level. If marketing endorsements are heaped on top of these prizes, the rift grows considerably. While Simona Halep, the world’s best female golf player made $1.5 million in 2016, Roger Federer, in second place, made $58 million. Mackenzie Hughes earned 2.36 million dollars ranked 143rd compared to Sung Hyun Park, women’s second, who made 2.34 million dollars. Back to the field of soccer, the highest-paid male footballer Cristiano Ronaldo closed in 2017 with $93 million compared to Alex Morgan’s $3.5 million being the highest-earning woman in soccer.

All this begs the question “why?” Why are women paid less than men? (“Exposure to Women’s Spots: Changing Attitudes Toward Female Athletes”, 2018) states sports fans tend to argue about women’s sports being boring compared to men’s, which leads to less media coverage. People would not be interested in something if their interest were not originally sparked, as is the case in men’s sports. Women get a lot less money than men do and according to Mark Lichtenhein, as cited by (Cox, 2018), the money is not a result of how well the players showcase their skills, but how well the media portrays them.

He then states that women are competing with men on their terms, chasing down the same sponsors and the same TV channels and since television is business-oriented, they will obviously go for the option they consider will bring them a larger audience and as such a larger revenue. He suggests that a solution to the problem would be seeking out different channels that are not originally based in sports and making them their own. This would create a platform where the demographic of the audience would focus on women’s sports and more time slots would be allocated to say sports are allowing for the audience to grow and gradually improve the perspective of female sports in the eye of the public. (Examination of Gender Equity and Female Participation in Sport, 2016) finds that marketability rather than on-field performance is the key factor in sponsors chasing down athletes.

Marketability here refers to the influence the athlete carries over his/her fans. In the eyes of the marketing sector, the more influence one has over purchasing decisions of their fans, the more marketable they are. Since most of the audience is comprised of men, the marketers will make decisions geared towards influencing the men to buy their products and in so doing, they will more often than not use a male athlete rather a female one. When the marketers are showcasing male athletes, they will often focus on their unique ability to perform focusing on skills such as speed and strength while the females will more often be depicted for their physical qualities such as attractiveness (‘Discrimination In The Marketing And Compensation Of Female Athletes In The Age Of Trump’, 2018). This makes their trade seem much less professional as they are deemed as attractive women playing a man’s game thus devaluing women’s sports.

On top of this (‘Discrimination In The Marketing And Compensation Of Female Athletes In The Age Of Trump’, 2018) finds that since men’s sports were mainstream long before women’s, there is a traditional feel to them, and the women’s sports may feel alien to the public thus leading to a lower number of viewers of women’s sports. This would mean two things; firstly, the media will not be overly enthused to display women’s sports since not as many people will watch them which could mean lower ratings for them and secondly, the lower number of viewers also generates less revenue and since TV is a business-minded industry, it is not hard to see why women are given less screen time.

A solution to the problem involves merging tournaments as was done in the Olympics where both the men’s and women’s events take place in the same tournament thus giving women’s sports and athletics the much-needed attention they deserve. To prove that this method works, ‘squash’ was able to offer 50-50 awards for winners by so doing in their 2017 World Championships as per (Cox, 2018).

In soccer is where the biggest rift is to be found. A solution to this problem would be to pump the vast amount of money made from the men’s soccer events to boost the prize money in women’s soccer as well as the bonuses for tournaments. Didulica, as per (Cox, 2018) stated that women’s soccer cannot be expected to hold the same value, sponsor and TV, without first being invested in it. The phrase “it takes money to make money” comes into play here. He then added that it all boils down to how many people actually want to watch women’s sports.

People watch sports for amazing moments such as the dunks in basketballs, the home runs in baseball, and the long-range goals in football to name a few. Therefore, to make women’s sports more attractive to the public, the playing field must be evened out first. (Chapman, Braae, Oliver & Appleton, 2018) finds that, in athletics, for instance lowering the basketball hoop to allow women, who may not have as much jumping ability as men, to make the dunk which is what people like to see.

This would make the sport so much more interesting to watch and as such attract a larger viewing which would then mean that TV channels would have to give them more screen time in turn allowing more sponsorship deals to be made which would then result in growing pays reducing the gap slowly but surely. It is important to state that sexualizing the sport may bring in more viewers but it would beat its own purpose and it would be degrading to the women in question. People would tune in to see what women are wearing in the sport rather than see them playing the actual sport. This is the case in the Legends Football League where the women are dressed in clothes that overemphasize their physical qualities taking away from their actual performance on the pitch (‘Discrimination In The Marketing And Compensation Of Female Athletes In The Age Of Trump’, 2018).

According to (‘Serena pens scathing letter on gender bias’, 2018), Serena Williams, in an open letter, decried being called “one of the world’s greatest female athletes” saying that male athletes such as LeBron James are not referred to as “male athletes”. She also says in her letter that she would not want her daughter being paid less than her son for the same work adding that she has made just as many sacrifices as her male counterparts in sports. Therefore, if all athletes were referred to as just athletes without stating their gender, it would improve the image in the public eye because it would go to show that the two athletes, men, and women, are equal.