The treatment of women in athletics is abhorrent, as they face all forms of degradation and discrimination — but female athletes are combating it.
Women in athletics face a large amount of harassment and discrimination that spans different categories: sexual abuse, threats of violence, homophobia, transphobia, and racism.
Sexual abuse is one of the most common forms of harassment that women face in general, and that’s only amplified for women in athletics due to their status as public figures. Many comments on female athletes’ posts include references to sexual objects (often dildos) and private bodily areas. In the Women’s National Basketball Association, there have been at least eight instances across the 2025 and 2026 seasons in which dildos have been thrown onto the court. Women should not be subjected to such disgusting treatment, least of all in their place of work. Women should be protected, not harassed, and not seen as things that can be objectified.
During the 2024 WNBA season, Connecticut Sun player DiJonai Carrington shared an email she received after her team beat the Indiana Fever in a playoff game. This email included graphic sexual assault threats, something that she had never previously received. Over 50 percent of athletes do not come forward with the abuse they have faced, so if one woman faced emails like this, chances are even more have as well.
During the 2021 WNBA season, four out of five players reported receiving sexually explicit content. These athletes are performing a job; they should not be subjected to sexual abuse in any capacity.
Homophobia and transphobia are also commonly directed towards female athletes. With a rise in campaigns against the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports, athletes have been targeted more often with harassment about their gender, and with false accusations of being transgender. Women in athletics are often portrayed as more masculine in general, which can lead to transphobia, as well as attacks on sexual orientation, whether true or not.
During the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, one in five athletes reported being targeted with predominantly homophobic abuse. Regardless of whether an athlete is queer or not, they should not be targeted for their identity. Who they love should not matter.
Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer, worked toward her historic gold medal win at the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, during her first match against Italian boxer Angela Carini, Carini quit 46 seconds into the match. Carini shared that she had never felt punches as hard as Khelif’s, leaving the ring without shaking her hand. Khelif faced an onslaught of transphobic comments, fueled by President Donald Trump and conservative activist and athlete Riley Gaines, due to the assumption that her hard punches meant she was biologically male, alongside attacks on her stereotypically “masculine” features. If women don’t do well in their matches they’ll receive mass amounts of backlash, but if they’re too aggressive or competitive they’ll also receive accusations and backlash. Women cannot win.
Racism in sports is rampant; women of color are not only attacked for being women but also for not being white. In 2023, Louisiana State University Women’s Basketball played the University of Iowa in the championship match, with LSU winning 102-85. In this match, LSU star Angel Reese and Iowa star Caitlin Clark were going at one another and trash-talking, but while Clark was portrayed as passionate, Reese immediately received racist remarks that said she was an aggressive, classless idiot. The portrayal of the two women was drastically different despite both doing the same things in-game, largely due to racist viewers who used the matchup to fuel a horrific race war.
Racism often intersects with the transphobia that women in athletics face. More women from the Global South or developing nations are affected by sex testing than women from other regions. The Global South primarily consists of countries that are not predominantly white.
In 2019, South African runner Caster Semenya was sidelined for over 11 months in track and field because of her hormone levels due to differences in sex development. Semenya’s body produces higher levels of testosterone than other biological women, something that international committees saw as unfair, so they told her to take hormone-suppressing medication. Semenya refused, which led to her being barred from international competition. Semenya spent over seven years in a legal battle against having to suppress her testosterone levels, leading to a win, but it did not overturn her sports ban.
Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was removed and suspended from competition in 2014 due to high natural testosterone levels (hyperandrogenism). The Court of Arbitration for Sport removed the suspension in 2015, ruling that Chand’s hormonal levels provided no evidence of an unfair advantage.
Black women in particular are often subjected to more scrutiny over appearances and false accusations of being transgender. Serena Williams and Brittney Griner are two women who have been constantly accused of being transgender; both are biological women. Women deserve to feel safe in their careers, and should not be attacked for any reason, but especially should not have their accolades and dignity stripped from them due to systemic racism mixed with active anti-transgender sentiments in athletics.
Representation
In mass media, female athletes are often categorized as being either aggressive or sexually appealing, and sometimes both. Women are often put in more skimpy uniforms than their male counterparts; even today women are not allowed to choose their uniforms because of largely male-led federations creating rules for uniforms. Aggressiveness is also used to market women’s sports, like Clark and Reese’s feud being sensationalized, ultimately leading to more abuse from the public toward both women.
In media, women receive more backlash than men. During tournaments like March Madness, women receive three times as much online abuse as men do. During the 2020 Olympics, women received 87% of all online abuse. This marks how the standard amount of abuse towards female athletes is much larger than that against men.
Mental Health
The harassment and scrutiny that women in sports face greatly impacts their mental health.
Over 50% of athletes do not seek support for the harassment they face, worsened by the fact that women are told not to speak out against the discrimination or harassment they face. Instead, they must accept the abuse in hopes of not being controversial or offensive.
Firsthand Accounts
Gracie Gold, an Olympic figure skater and bronze medalist, faced immense amounts of pressure from the public and herself to be perfect, leading to an eating disorder and depression. She checked herself into a mental facility for 45 days, which helped her on learning how to separate her identity as a figure skater and public figure from other facets of her life.
Other figure skaters like Alysa Liu and Amber Glenn advocate for the importance of mental health. Liu retired from skating at 16 due to overwhelming lifelong pressure, taking two years to focus on herself and live her life. When Liu came back to the sport, she had a new sense of joy for it, and had her own autonomy, not letting her performances and medals be the sole contributors to her self-worth. Glenn stopped skating in 2015 at around age 15 because she was criticized for her appearance, body shape, and costumes, eventually internalizing these criticisms and struggling with an depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder.
Both women came back to the sport better than ever, with one goal: to not let their sport define them. Both women have done just that, competing extraordinarily well without internalizing outside harassment and abuse.
Many other athletes have spoken publicly about their mental health and why public abuse and hate campaigns should stop, as all athletes are human. Some examples are Simone Biles (gymnastics), Naomi Osaka (tennis), Harper Murray (volleyball), Victoria Garrick (volleyball), Lauren Betts (basketball), Jordan Chiles (gymnastics), Suni Lee (gymnastics), and Katelyn Ohashi (gymnastics).
All in all, women in athletics have always faced mass amounts of scrutiny, but with the introduction of social media in the last two decades, the harassment and abuse have become more visible and harmful to athletes. Athletes are working to combat these abuses and are actively fighting for mental health visibility and rights in sports. Women deserve to be protected from all forms of harassment, especially in their places of work, because while they provide entertainment, at the end of the day they are employees and people, not puppets.