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Sports gender inequalities research paper
History of women in sports assignment
Sports gender inequalities research paper
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On the Forbes 2015 Top 100 highest paid athletes list, only two women appear. They are tennis players: Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Tennis is one of the few sports in the world where men and women are paid equal prize money. However, when it comes to endorsement deals there are still major differences. Serena Williams is one of the most dominant athletes in the world, but one would not know it from her endorsement deals. According to Forbes, the 33-year-old tennis star ranks number 47 on its World’s Highest Paid Athletes list (Bergson). Serena Williams should have so many more endorsements such as Rolex, or a car brand, but she does not. Compared to her male counterparts, like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, she has many fewer endorsements. …show more content…
Unlike male athletes, who are portrayed to be athletic and meant for performance, female athletes are shown through their beauty and sex appeal overshadowing court performances (Liang). Susan K. Cahn, professor at the University of Buffalo, who researches the history of women in sports, would agree with Liang and say that female athletes who inherently express strength and independence which are not traditionally feminine qualities, are often categorized as masculine and lesbian. Dr. Kahn explains asserts their femininity through the media. Only a few female athletes will earn large salaries from playing sports, which causes many to embrace the media’s sexualization. Females can show off their bodies to obtain more exposure and endorsements (Corbett). If the female athlete is stooping this low for a little extra attention to get endorsements, and money, maybe sports should start considering giving more money to its female athletes. For example, Anna Kournikova does not actually make a lot of money from playing tennis, and in fact, has never won a major tournament. Instead, she has become the world’s most highly paid women’s tennis player through endorsements that emphasize her sex appeal over her athleticism (Corbett). Showing off the female body in sexual ways in public is becoming the norm, and it should not
Turn on ESPN, and there are many female sports reporters, and many reports on female athletes. Flip through Sports Illustrated, and female athletes are dotted throughout the magazine. Female athletes star in the commercials. Female athletes are on the cover of newspapers. Millions of books have been sold about hundreds of female athletes. However, this has not always been the case. The number of females playing sports nowadays compared to even twenty years ago is staggering, and the number just keeps rising. All the women athletes of today have people and events from past generations that inspired them, like Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the All-American Professional Girls Baseball League, Billie Jean King, and the 1999 United States Women’s World
Intro - Prue Gilbert who is a human rights lawyer from Melbourne once stated in an article; “Last year I was driving my then five year old son to a birthday party, and we inevitably started talking about his own upcoming birthday party. A football party, Dad can be umpire, Ned can be captain and we can all eat hotdogs” Then is next comment stopped me. “and all the girls can be the crowd”
Women sports have come a long way, since the days when women were only allowed to watch. “The past three decades have witnessed a steady growth in women's sports programs in America along with a remarkable increase in the number of women athletes (Daniel Frankl 2)” From an early age women were thought to be “Lady Like”; they are told not to get all sweaty and dirty. Over 200 years later since Maud Watson stepped on the tennis courts of Wimbledon (Sports Media digest 3); women now compete in all types and levels of sports from softball to National racing. Soccer fans saw Mia Hamm become the face of Women’s soccer around the world , Venus and Serena Williams are two of the most popular figures in tennis, and Indy car racing had their first woman racer, Danika Patrick. With all the fame generated by these women in their respective sports, they still don’t receive the same compensation as the men in their respective sports fields. Venus Williams, net worth is 60 million dollars; 27 million came from playing tennis (celebritynetworth 4). Her sister, Serena Williams has a tennis...
Lopiano and Sommers agree that the amount of media coverage female athletes receive compared to male athletes indicates that female athletes are less valid. Lopiano and Sommers both point out that the media tends to highlight female athletes in action only during major events. Fortunately, for the male athletes, the tendency is different because no matter what time of the year it is, male events are always airing on the television. The media only decides to highlight events such as the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s basketball Final Four, Olympics, and World Cup soccer. Since the Olympic games and World Cup occurs every four years, the Final Four also known as the semi-final round are the rare eve...
In 1970 only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports, today that ratio is 1 in 3. Sports are a very important part of the American society. Within sports heroes are made, goals are set and dreams are lived. The media makes all these things possible by creating publicity for the rising stars of today. Within society today, the media has downplayed the role of the woman within sports. When the American people think of women in sports, they think of ice skating, field hockey and diving. People don’t recognize that women have the potential to play any sport that a Man can play, with equal skill, if not better.
...ennis, basketball, soccer, and martial arts—have come from the days of cheerleading and synchronized swimming when she was growing up in the ’70s.” Disparities in media coverage and over-sexualized female athletes on magazine covers is something that needs to come to an end because of its effects on both male and female viewers, young and old, athletes and non-athletes. Both female and male athletics influence young people and shape their personality and morals as they mature. Retired WNBA player, Lisa Leslie credits her participation in basketball with shaping her character, as well as her career. “Sports can also help teenagers during an awkward time in their development.” (“Women’s Athletics: A Battle For Respect”). The solution is to come together as a society and identify how to balance the respect for female and male athletes in the media.
Unintentionally, a lot of us have been boxed into institutions that promote gender inequality. Even though this was more prominent decades ago, we still see how prevalent it is in today’s world. According to the authors of the book, Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, Lisa Wade and Myra Marx Ferree define gendered institutions as “the one in which gender is used as an organizing principle” (Wade and Ferree, 167). A great example of such a gendered institution is the sports industry. Specifically in this industry, we see how men and women are separated and often differently valued into social spaces or activities and in return often unequal consequences. This paper will discuss the stigma of sports, how gender is used to separate athletes, and also what we can learn from sports at Iowa State.
Gender discrimination is prominent in every industry, but it is as though the sport industry is one of the worst. Women in the work force currently receive only 80 cents to every man’s dollar (Holmes, 2016). However, female athletes both in America and internationally receive a far lesser compensation for their attributes. The only difference of the sports being played is who plays them. There should be no reason why a male athlete receives better pay simply because he had a 50% chance of being born a man. At birth, no one controls the gender, but as they grow and mature, they control their personality and development. Payment should be on personal skills and not gender. As a female STHM student focusing on sport management and a former athlete,
At times I was dangerously thin, and my arms have always been longer than they should be for someone of my height. Nonetheless, my body has never gone under scrutiny and in fact, was common and celebrated among male basketball players. This is one of the many benefits of my male privilege. Female athletes, on the other hand, are subjected to a contradictory ideal that they should maintain a strong athletic body for the sport they play, yet also remain thin and appeal to the sexual ideal men hold them to. Nita Mary McKinley states in, Weighty Issues: Constructing Fatness and Thinness as Social Problems, “The construction of ideal weight parallels the construction of the traditional ideal woman and ideal weight becomes gendered” (99). This is unfair to the female athlete as it creates a conflict between physically exceling in their sport and being sexually discriminated against by men. As a male, there is practically no sexual consequences I suffer from that pertain to the body type I maintain. One of the most publicly scrutinized athletes for her body shape is tennis legend Serena Williams. Male sports writers in their attempts to objectify Williams, have shared their thoughts on how she is too strong and too muscular to sexually appeal to men. Serena has since reclaimed her sexuality by posing in ESPN Magazine’s body issue, along with appearing in Beyonce’s “Formation” music video. American celebrity culture, European fashion culture, and international advertising are all responsible for the development of thin female body types being the most sexually desired among males in America. It is important to apply locational context and recognize that other female body types are celebrated throughout other cultures. For instance Fatema Mernissi confesses, in Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem, “In the Moroccan streets, Men’s flattering comments regarding my particularly generous hips have for decades led me to
Female athletes, unlike males, are not always portrayed exclusively as performance athletes, instead attention is placed on sex appeal usually overshadowing their on-field accomplishments. Unfortunately female sports, like male sports, are directed primarily to a male audience, the media commonly use marketing techniques which involve sexualisation of the female bodies under a male gaze (Bremner, 2002). The idea that “sex sells” is used to generate viewers and followers of female sport.
Krane, V. (2001). We can be athletic and feminine, but do we want to? Challenging hegemonic femininity in women's sport. Quest, 53,115-133.
Most people watch some form of sports, whether it be the Olympics or the highlights on ESPN. The NBA and NHL playoffs are underway and theyit seems to be the only news on ESPN. There is almost no coverage of the WNBA playoffs or any female athletics. Tennis isone of the only big sports on ESPN for women. While during the Olympics the coverage seems to be non-stop and close to equal. Women’s participation in sport is at an all-time high and has almost become equal with men’s, however,. sSports media does notfails to show this equality and skews the way we look at these athletes. Through the disciplines of sociology and gender studies, it can be seen that despite the many gains of women in sports since the enactment of Title IX, “traditional” notions of masculinity and femininity still dominate media coverage of males and females in sports, which is observed in Olympic programming and sports news broadcasts.
A unique facet to the nationwide college athlete discourse surrounds the rigorousness of their academic standards. Supporters of the current standards cite that student-athletes must meet the same minimum GPA as traditional students. Although the GPA requirements differ depending on the institution, the students must make progress toward graduating based on a schedule established by the NCAA. Violating the rules can result in ineligibility. Bill Hawkins, a professor at University of Georgia, points out that student-athletes must also adhere to the same admission standards as other students, despite many athletes coming from poorly funded public schools. Hawkins also argues that student-athletes are devoting 50 to 70 hours a week to sports and cannot handle a full-time academic course load during the sports season. The NCAA points out that graduation rates for all student-athletes are rising. Graduation rates among women student-athletes are around 80 percent for many sports and exceeds the rate for women students overall.
Media plays a large role in affecting peoples thinking, opinions, ideas, etc. In essence media can shape our thinking into negative views and perspectives that are typically not true. Sometimes the media plays as a puppet master to society. Specifically, the inequity of the gender roles within sports causes for a stir in commotion that calls for some attention. In doing so the inadequate misuse of media towards women in sports causes low exposure, amongst many other things. On the other hand their male counterparts are on the other end of the success spectrum. Because of this noticeable difference, it is vital that action is taken place to level out equality within sports. Due to the power of media, it is believed that a change in media coverage
Whether its baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or tennis, sports is seen all over the world as a representation of one’s pride for their city, country, and even continent. Sports is something that is valued world-wide which has the ability to bring communities together and create different meanings, beliefs and practices between individuals. Although many people may perceive sports to have a significant meaning within our lives, it can also have the ability to separate people through gender inequalities which can also be represented negatively throughout the media. This essay will attempt to prove how gender is constructed in the sports culture while focusing on female athletes and their acceptance in today’s society.