Gender Inequality and the Future of Sports.
Sol Macera Carsetti
March 26, 2024
Gender Inequality
Gender inequality is the unequal treatment of individuals based on gender, typically disadvantageous to women in areas such as education, employment, and representation in leadership roles. Gender inequality in sports originates from beliefs of male superiority, physical strength, and power. The fairness of the competition is compromised by these differences. Creating rules becomes crucial for solving this. Rules that give justice, fairness, and diversity can remove persistent obstacles and create fair playing fields. These rules act as a starting point for challenging norms, encouraging diversity, and ensuring that every athlete has an equal chance at success.
The pervasive gender disparity in sports, characterized by unequal treatment and opportunities for men and women, undermines women's confidence, recognition, and enjoyment in the field. This inequality not only affects grown women but also has detrimental effects on teenagers, including those exploring their gender identity.
To address this issue, the International Sports Federation must prioritize comprehensive gender equality initiatives aimed at challenging cultural norms, promoting equal opportunities, and ensuring fair recognition and compensation for female athletes.
Challenging cultural rules
Challenging cultural norms in sports involves more than confronting defined gender roles, but also removing the systems that support these norms. Whether through nonconformity in the expression of gender or engagement in activities that challenge rigid gender norms, athletes who go outside of these traditional rules sometimes face strong criticism.
This opposition reflects the larger problems in society around gender and athletics, as traditional masculinity is at the same challenged and defended. As it questions the authority of traditional gender roles and promotes a more varied expression of gender and sexuality within the sports domain, challenging these norms is crucial to the development of a more inclusive and equitable sports culture. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that gender-integrated sports, such as cheering, have the ability to change people's perceptions of men, which raises the possibility that these activities could reduce some of the negative effects of male-dominated team sports.
This problem is made even more challenging by the media's representation of female athletes, which prioritizes sensuality above skill and shows the need for a change in how women in sports are portrayed. In the end, breaking these societal norms involves impacting larger social views toward gender equality as well as sports-specific opinions.
Promoting equal opportunities
In order to shape young people's future views on gender roles and leadership positions historically held by males, it is essential that equal chances in sports leadership be provided. This is particularly significant for girls. In addition to maintaining stereotypes, the ongoing underrepresentation of women—particularly black women—in coaching and leadership positions in sports reduces the number of varied role models needed to promote an inclusive sports culture.
Walker and Bopp's judgment of the pattern of discrimination, which is sometimes justified by a supposed lack of experience, is false and stresses the value of opportunity and coaching for female athletes. They argue that, in order to motivate future generations, these obstacles must be removed because, as they put it, "Guys don't come out of their moms' bellies knowing how to coach," and neither do girls, showing how it is the same at the beginning without external stereotypical traditions.
Besides that, coaches have a vital role in developing young athletes' perceptions regarding gender roles in sports and serving as a lifetime role model, emphasizing the need of varying leadership in this area. This strategy not only opposes popular opinions but also opens up possibilities for a more inclusive and equal future in sports leadership.
This suggests that there may be a systemic problem with the judicial system. The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team's reliance on public advertising and the media to bring attention to their wage inequality shows the weaknesses of the legal system in ensuring equal wages and indicates the necessity for other approaches. While this approach is advantageous for well-known teams, it could not be available to less popular athletes, which points out the need for institutional and legal changes.
Insufficient money and resources compromise the EEOC's vital role in maintaining laws against wage discrimination, reinforcing the need for greater assistance to effectively close the gender pay gap. To make matters more difficult, the way female athletes appear in the media frequently prioritizes their sexuality above their athletic skills. The cultural depreciation of women's sports is helped by this prejudiced visualization, and it may have an effect on the public's interest in and support for female athletes.
Ensuring fair recognition
The matter of fair recognition and compensation for female athletes is complex and includes both legal and societal aspects. The Corning Glass Works v. Brennan's case establishes a legal tradition that defends the idea that equal labor deserves equal compensation regardless of an individual's gender or timing of the work, giving rise to legal challenges for wage gaps in sports. However, the small number of defendants in gender discrimination complaints raises worries about the effectiveness of Title IX in addressing gender discrimination, including wage differences.
Therefore, in order to genuinely recognize and reward female athletes equally, addressing the fair recognition and compensation of female athletes involves an overall approach that includes legal reform, cultural change, and a shift in media representation.
