The growth of women in male dominated sports is increasing. Participation has increased in schools on the high school level as well as the college level, with women competing on some men's varsity teams.
An article in the New York Times about women's wrestling in colleges had caught my eye. I had just completed reading Chapter 8 in our text that talked about females in athletics and it mentioned that females now have the opportunity to participate in sports because of Title IX, a federal gender-equity law. The article in the New York Times also mentioned Title IX, although it said quite the opposite. It stated that growth of such an unconventional women's sport as wrestling at small private institutions has more to do with increasing revenue for the school from increased enrollment than it does with Title IX. How many schools institute participation in unconventional women's sports for revenue reasons rather than for gender equality? Are there equal opportunities provided for both the male and female athletes? Are the women's teams receiving the same support or are they only created to benefit the institution?
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5 comments:
John,
I think many women are just as athletic and talented as men in sports however, there still seems to be a gender bias against women in this field. Male sports still dominate professional sports and college level sports much to the detriment of athletics in general. It seems that colleges have some collegiate womens sports to satisfy the requirement so its not as obvious that they are gender biased. Female athletes should be equally promoted so that we can all appreciate their achievements. It would also go along way in inspiring young women to follow in their example.
John, I agree with Glenn in that it is up to the schools and even society to make sure that female athletes and games are promoted just as strongly as male athletes/games. As long as there is an unequal amount of support for female athletes to male athletes the response from the audience and financial supporters will fall short of what it should be. Women have become more involved in watching and supporting sports but I think the larger chunk of the active audience is male and that is who schools and marketers should target in setting a positive image for female athletic games. Title IX just makes it illegal to discriminate but it does nothing in terms of ensuring that these athletes and games are properly installed to ensure success.
I think it is fairly obvious why males athletics dominate the media, just look at the audience. I think males watch far more sports programming, buy far more sports magazines, read the sports section far more than females do. I am an avid sports fan. There are some female events I will watch such as tennis, soccer and golf. I will not watch the WNBA, I find it boring in comparison to the NBA, for me it is the equivalent of watching minor league baseball.
There have been a few occasions where female golfers have been invited to play in a tournament on the male tour. In both instances the female golfers, who were among the best on the female tour (Anika Sorenstam, Michele Wie)didn't make the cut in the men's tournament. (Tounaments are usually four days, after the second day players not within 10 shots of the lead are cut).
I am not trying to be controversial; I am just providing my perspective as a frequent viewer of sports. I was surfing SI.Com the other day and they had two headlines about the Indy 500. Primary headline was something like Indy 500 full of crashes, secondary was Danica (Patrick, a female driver) finishes 22nd. Do you think if John Doe finished 22nd there would be a headline? So it is evident that the media does make an effort to highlight the performance of women.
John,
Here is the answer quite simply: Rutgers University is building another multimillion dollar football stadium for the men. When was the last time a stadium was ever built for women's sports team? And, if we look closely, they probably cut one or more women's program to pay for it!
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