When asked how to make women’s soccer more appealing to male viewers, former FIFA President Sepp Blatter suggested that female players wear “shorter shorts”. In 2017, WNBA player Nneka Ogwumike (the 2012 Rookie of the Year for the league) earned just 20% of an average NBA player’s salary. Out of the National Football League’s 122 referees, just one, Sarah Thomas, is a woman. The All-American Girls Professional Ball League (which inspired the 1992 film A League of Their Own) was created to fulfill the desires of the American people for baseball during World War II. After attracting a viewership of almost a million Americans, the league closed their final season in 1954 due to the introduction of televised Major League Baseball games.
Courtesy: Time
Even as I sat down to write about women in sports, I faced skepticism from male and female friends alike about my topic choice. They asked why this topic was as important as representation in STEM fields or access to contraceptives. They questioned why this was important in creating an increasingly equalized society and noted that women’s sports simply aren’t as “exciting” as men’s sports.
I could go on, providing these statistics and examples but that song has already been sung. Even after the institution of Title XI in 1972, which prohibited inequality in education-related activities (i.e. college athletics), women who pursue careers in sports, whether as players, coaches, team personnel or as officials or referees, are met with disproportionate pay for the amount of work they do, few opportunities for advancement, low name recognition and (for some coaches and officials) a lack of female role models or mentors in their field. As more girls begin playing sports at a young age and develop into stronger people through sport, changes in how we treat female athletes and officials need to be made to ensure that sports stay fair and fun for everyone.
Courtesy: Dilip Vishwanat
In the United States, one sport dominates all others in terms of viewership: football. This year’s SuperBowl LII attracted a viewing audience of 103.4 million people and events throughout the year such as the NFL Draft and the NFL Combine (televised tryouts) keep the hype alive even when the sport isn’t being played. Baseball holds a similar importance in American life (after all, it is THE American pastime), with entire networks devoted to the sport (such as the YES Network, which caters to fans of the New York Yankees) and countless talk shows being aired on television and on the radio. Basketball, too, holds such importance that the entire month of March is taken over by the phenomenon of March Madness, not to mention the name recognition that comes with pro players. Due to their popularity, these “Big 3” sports receive more coverage than every other sport in the country- both men’s and, with a way larger disparity, women’s. In a 2015 study, researchers watched coverage from ESPN’s SportsCenter and Fox Sports 1’s Fox Sports Live, concluding that each program only discussed or showed women’s sports less than 1% of the time, with a slight increase during the Winter Olympic Games. This dominance of football, baseball and basketball leaves little room for other sports and thus female athletes to get attention and viewership at times when the Olympic Games or a major championship tournament aren’t being held.
In every other country in the world, soccer is the most popular sport by a longshot (the 2014 FIFA World Cup was watched by a staggering 3.2 billion viewers). In the United States, the MLS (Major League Soccer) and the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) struggle for attention in their competition with America’s more popular sports. This unequal attention is more harmful to women’s soccer, however. In 2016, members of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team (including Hope Solo and Alex Morgan) filed a wage-discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, arguing that they were paid a quarter of what the men’s national team was paid. Additionally, they noted that the system that paid bonuses for wins favored the men’s team, and they referenced their success both on the field and in generating increased revenue in 2015, as they had won the Women’s World Cup for the third time. While the wage system is complicated, critics argue that the entire structure of how the men’s and women’s team earns wages creates the disparity. The U.S. men’s team plays in a longer tournament to qualify for championship tournaments, and they are paid only if they play in games; they also receive bonuses for games won, lost or tied. The women’s team, which plays more games per year than the men’s team, is paid a minimum salary of $72,000, plus a $1,350 bonus per game won. The players on the women’s team are paid regardless of if they play or not, and they have some health insurance benefits, including maternity pay. In short, even though the women are paid more frequently, they must work more frequently than the men’s team to receive that payment. The suit was settled last year when the team set up a new agreement with U.S. Soccer, which entails raising the salaries, bonuses and per diem stipends allotted to the women’s team.
Courtesy: Mother Jones
Even as the U.S. women’s soccer team scores with their near-revolutionary advancement for women in global soccer, women on the sidelines (literally) still struggle to be taken seriously as the coaching staff, officials and referees. This problem exists for women coaching women on the collegiate level and for women coaching both men’s and women’s professional teams. After Title XI was passed, the percentage of female head coaches for female teams dropped from 90% to 43%. As funding increased for women’s sports, two things happened: First, some universities eliminated “non-revenue” men’s athletic programs (which is why some people dislike Title XI) and the head coaching positions for women’s teams became salaried, eliminating the need for female volunteers who had previously served as coaches and attracting male head coaches seeking compensation for work. This trend did not occur inversely, though: only 2% of collegiate men’s head coaches are women and they usually don’t coach the “Big 3” sports I mentioned above. As a result, women are fairly represented on the field but are less visible on the sidelines. On the professional level, the NFL’s first full-time female coach, Kathryn Smith, was hired by the Buffalo Bills in 2016. Even though other women had worked with the head coaching staff in a variety of sports before 2016, these positions were largely temporary or internship-like in structure. On the refereeing side, there are a handful of female football referees; Sarah Thomas is the only one to officiate for the NFL. In Europe, a single woman, Bibiana Steinhaus, works as a referee in the German Bundesliga (also known as the German soccer league). There is a surprising amount of research about the psychological reasons that female referees exist in small numbers. To sum it up, women tend to handle being fouled in a less aggressive manner than men, who will get up in the face of referees who may have called a foul that they don’t agree with. Additionally, some sports that are played by both women and men have the same rules but different styles of play. Men’s soccer tends to be quicker and more aggressive, while women’s soccer is less aggressive and fewer fouls are called. Some suggest that female referees are quicker to call a foul and even others question the ethos of female officials who had never played in the style of a men’s team. Regardless, a lack of women in sports leadership can be disheartening to those trying to make a career in sports.
As children, girls (and boys, too) are often told by their peers that they “throw like a girl”. What does this mean? Does “like a girl” automatically mean that a child’s throw or toss or pass is bad or worth less than another child’s throw? The women who work in and play sports across the globe should be honored as much as their male counterparts in sport and while a shift in attitudes is beginning, a lot of work has to be done to elevate women to a similar status in the world of sports. Despite what some leaders have to say, shorter shorts aren’t the magic solution to sports equity.
Courtesy USA Today