“There’s no substitute for hard work. If you work hard and prepare yourself, you might get beat, but you’ll never lose.” – Nancy Lieberman
The social value culture system didn’t stop the biggest and most famous women athletes and they included their participation in physical activity and various variety of sports.
Due to the negative connotations and judgments with women and girls participating in sport or being physically active, there is a low number compared to boys and men. The reasons as to why there is a significant gender gap with participation of sport and physical activity is due to the gender ideologies society has placed on the certain roles and ways an individual should act or appear physically. There needs to be more encouragement women and especially girls to participate in physical activity in sports to help bridge the gap between genders. With the change in more women participating, it could help aid in change with other sectors of in society due to social cultural factors. Gender inequalities have been around for a long time now. The “roles” each gender has been assigned to and the activities of daily living has changed slightly with the influx of participation in physical activity and as well as sports with women, towards the early 1980s.
From working full time jobs to having to do the motherly duties at home, there is no time for women to dedicate an hour to being physically active unless further planned out. In comparison men they are the “sole” bread makers and do not typically assist in household chores or taking of the children. Men and boys being the first individuals encouraged to try out multiple sports or forms of physical activity. Before then there was little to no participation, especially publicly. Even with the smaller percentage of women and girls participating in physical activity, it is not the greater population that has incorporated these methods into their lifestyle.
When women or girls do participate in physical activity or sports, there is a stigma that comes along with it as well. There are prominent physiological differences with men and women. “Researchers suggest that there appears to be less muscle hypertrophy with strength improvement in women compared to men” (Hodgson, Kamon & Lewis, 1986). Since there are gender physiological differences between men and women, it is viewed that women are lesser of the two. Since this judgment of women depicts them not being strong enough, there is no encouragement from society to continue with elite sports that are male dominant. For example, with Caster Semenya and her battle to prove she is a woman due to athletic ability her gender was put into question. Semenya had to endure vigorous and deeming gender verification test during the 2016 Summer Olympics. She was in last place at the beginning of her race but ended up winning the gold medal in her event many spectators as well as her competitors thought that something suspicious was occurring due to her triumphant win. The testing of her gender took very invasive approaches to try to prove that her gender is not what is said since her athletic ability was so mesmerizing. Her physical ability mirrored “male aspects” which lead individuals assuming that she could not be a woman due to the gender stereotypes of women being weaker than. With this story of Semenya, it shines a negative light with female athletes or participation in physical activity. There seems that there is always something to prove when being a woman in sports. In addition to the prominent physiological stereotypes associated with the aspects that stir women from participating sports.
Gender in sports has been a controversial issue ever since sports were invented. This was another area of life exemplifying the sexism of people in which women were not allowed to do something that men could. However, over the last century in particular, things have begun to change. Recently a major issue for women in sports is female coaches and their salaries. The salaries of the male coaches in athletics have continuously been on the rise. And on top of that, the male coaches make 159% of the money that female coaches make. Female participation in College athletics are also on the rise. However, the majority of funding in colleges goes into the men's athletic programs.
Another issue of women in sports was the health risk to the women who compete. The recommendations of the scientists state that involvement in sports and other such physical activity reduces the likelihood of developing a number of life-threatening health conditions.
Even today, though gender equality made some great steps forward, such as the 1978 recognition by the UNESCO organization of physical activity and sports as a basic human right, the discrepancies between women and men are still existing and gender equality hasn’t come by far where it ought to be.
In the USA, some forty percent of all sportspeople are women. However, only a mere 6 relate to women’s sports. We also see that stories related to women-only sports are adding up to not even a mere 4 percent of all sports stories in our nation’s four major newspapers.
The US Women’s Sports Foundation reports that male athletes are receiving some $180 million more annually in athletic scholarship grants than female athletes do. On top of that are colleges spending only 24 percent of their total athletic operations budgets on female sports activities. Additionally, the college and universities spend only 16 percent of their recruiting budgets and just over 30 percent of their scholarship and grant budgets on female athletics.
There are people who say that “women’s sports activities aren’t interesting enough”. Well, women’s sports popularity has been growing rapidly now for a number of years, yet, unfortunately, the sponsorship dollars and media coverage haven’t followed suit and gender inequality remains an important and not-resolved issue. And this applies to inequality in education as well.
Women in sports often face sexism in the form of discriminatory practices, which lead to emotional problems.
However, no matter how much statistical information is collected and what predictions it allows making, no one can say for sure how much gender is going to predetermine the future of different male and female sports. It should be taken into consideration that gender roles cannot be analysed apart from other influential factors such as ethnicity, social status, religion, etc. that can create obstacles to full-fledged participation in professional sports. Despite all the attempts of different organizations to achieve equality, gender still influences the representation and abilities of men and women in sports. It becomes especially evident in top-level events, such as the World Cup or the Olympic Games. Devaluation, trivialization, and discrimination of women are evident across all sports.
Conclusion:
Although sport participation and the acceptance and support of female athletes has increased exponentially since the late 1970s, future increases are not a given And even now, the reality is that women in some societies still struggle against the traditional gender ideologies that hamper their participation in sport. In developed countries, gender inequities still exist in support, funding, and sport-related jobs. To further effect change, the gender ideologies that are related to sport must be put out onto the table and examined, before any subsequent action can be taken. (sports in society).
Multicultural education is a platform for achieving greater gender equity in sports.
Vaibhav
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