Gender Disparity In Women's Sports

The lack of attention given to female sports has hindered girl’s sports participation. Often times, the media’s coverage is non-existent, or inconsistent at best. The coverage only improves during the Olympics and World Cup, which is held every 4 years. The time allotted for women’s sports in 2006 Olympic Games was similar to that of men’s sports during primetime and late night periods, but during the day, more time was given to view male sporting events (Women’s Sports Foundation, 2009). Outside the Olympic Games, women’s sports are given even less attention. In 2014, ESPN’s Sportscentre only gave 2% of airtime to cover women’s sports, a figure that has not changed since 1999 (Kroh, 2015). Many sports journalists argue that the media attention

Though there is a growing interest in viewing women’s sports, sport participation among all age groups have not seen the same skyrocketing increase. According to Statistics Canada (Figure 1.1), the participation of female amateur athletes in sport have decreased in all age groups, most notably a 14.4% decrease in women ages 20-24 from 2005 to 2010. Meanwhile, their male counterparts have seen a 4.5% increase from 2005 to 2010 (Canadian Heritage, 2012). The main contributor to this disparity is the exposure and encouragement that men receive when they view male sports in the media. For example, in almost every male sport, there is a household name made known by the media—whether it’s Kobe Bryant in basketball, Tom Brady in football, or Christiano Ronaldo in soccer. On the other hand, not many talented female athletes gain the same recognition as their male counterparts. The average person would find it difficult to name a star WNBA player or female soccer player without further research. Though many females do find success in professional sports, young girls find it hard to participate in amateur sports and relate to the world of sports in general given the lack of encouragement and attention from the media on these potential role

From January 1997 to December 2008, only 38 of 676 Sport’s Illustrated issues featured women on the front cover (Women’s Sports Foundation, 2009). Of those 38 covers, 6 of them had the women as part of a larger feature story and 12 of them were models for Sport’s Illustrated infamous swimsuit issue (see Figure 1.2). Though some argue that all exposure to women’ sports is good exposure, the media’s sexualisation of female athletes does not garner any more respect for the sport. When the Tucker Centre for Research on Girls & Women in Sport surveyed two different age groups of two different genders, majority of the people said that photos of competent female athletes draws their interest in the sport in comparison to sexualized athletes. Men from ages 14-33, the group that reported the highest response to soft porn images of female athletes, said that the photos only drew their attention to the woman, not the sport. The study concluded that “Sex sells sex. Sex does not sell women’s sports.” (University of Minnesota,