Women Sports Research Paper

Women Sports: A Struggle for Recognition

Improvements in technology, the rise of the media, and globalization have all caused a dramatic increase in the popularity of sports. Historically, professional sports have been seen as a category where only men can lift the trophies, and women must simply just watch, but throughout the recent years, women have tried to overcome this situation, unfortunately, though, these athletes are facing even bigger problems like, wage differences, importance, and sexual discrimination, ultimately causing thousands of talented female athletes to surrender their fight to become professional. In Ariel Levy’s book, “Female Chauvinist Pigs”, she takes a closer look at the empowered women of society who overcame the

Once society observes the higher level of play shown by male athletes, they expect female athletes to compete at the same level, which is a huge dilemma because women don’t have the same support given to men. The most successful women in sports history are generally associated with “acting like men”, and this way of being has given them the superiority needed to stand out in their sport. Due to society’s high standards women athletes have been forced to assimilate their play as much as possible to men, since men are portrayed as the perfect athletes. In Jean O’Reilly’s book “Women and Sports in the United States”, she states “Within the context of the masculine domain of sport, sportswomen are expected to perform hegemonic femininity while distancing themselves from behavior perceived as masculine” (O’Reilly 82.) Pressuring women athletes to compete at the same level as men without portraying a masculine behavior is clearly seen as sexual discrimination. Women should have their own unique standards in order to avoid direct comparison to men. They shouldn’t be afraid to “throw like a girl”, a phrase that has been a form of insult to any athlete for the past decades, regardless of gender. Levy praises women who act like men in order to be successful, but in sports, women who use this

In an article by Vivian Acosta, titled “Women In Sports”, she conducts a survey that demonstrates that only 26.6% of the national budget for recruitment of college athletes was spent on women, while the other 73.4% was spent on the recruitment of male athletes. The significantly lower amount of money spent on recruiting female college athletes, is a clear example of the favoritism towards male sports and the lack of support given to the female programs. Although some may argue that Title IX, a law created in 1972 to ban sexual discrimination in school athletics, was effective in eliminating gender racism in sports, in reality the gap between both genders is enormous. According to Acosta only 34% of college scholarship funds have been awarded to women athletes, causing huge questions in society. Like Levy argues, many women today are using a strategy called “Tomming” where females are changing their way of being to satisfy the dominant group, men. In the sports world, this concept can clearly be seen when female athletes change their way of playing the game, being embarrassed to “throw like a girl”, all to assimilate as much as possible to men who are the dominant gender in athletics. This attempt of assimilation has harmed the progress in female athletics because it has caused an elevation of standards in the gameplay that is almost genetically