Since sports were popularized, they have always been male-dominated. Still to this day, women are not getting the same athletic opportunities as men do. Women are wrongfully seen as weak and having the need to rely on men to get anything done. In school, teachers would ask the question “can I have any strong boys come to help me move this.” Small questions like this, that many would ignore, have lasting effects on girls. This idea that men are stronger and more athletic than women has been engraved into us since we were kids. Fortunately, many women have stepped up and defied that stereotype.
Serena Williams is an American tennis player. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles, more than any other female or male in the Open Era. Alongside her sister Venus, they have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles. She has also won 3 gold medals at the Olympics. Serena Williams has paved the way for women around the world to explore tennis.
Lindsey Vonn is an American skier and was previously on the US Ski Team. She has won 4 World Cup overall Championships throughout her career. Lindsey has won 1 gold medal and 2 bronze medals at the Vancouver and Pyeongchang Olympics in 2010 and 2018.
Sue Bird is an Israeli-American basketball player for the Seattle Storm in the WNBA. She was drafted by the Seattle Storm in 2002. Sue holds the record for the most assists in WNBA history.
All of these women are paving the way for fellow women in sports. Even though they are leaders in their respective sports, they don’t get paid the way that they should. Sue Bird is in her 18th season with the WNBA and is only getting paid 221,450 dollars a year. LaMelo Ball has not even played a season with the NBA and is getting paid 16 million dollars a year. In what way is this fair? Similarly, Serena Williams gets paid 8 million a year, and this is including all of her business partnerships, alongside her playing tennis. Women are getting paid much less than their male counterparts in sports.
Another sport we can look at is soccer. The United States female soccer team has won 4 Women's World Cup titles, 4 Olympic gold medals, and 8 CONCACAF Gold Cups. The women’s team won a World Cup in 2019. The men’s team has not won a World Cup since 2010. If the women’s team is winning more than the men’s, why is it okay that the men are getting paid around 60,000 dollars a year while the women are getting paid around 40,000 dollars a year? Many when they hear statements like this think it's because more people watch men’s soccer over women’s. In reality from 2016 to 2018 women’s games made around 50.8 million dollars in revenue while men’s games made around 49.9 million dollars in revenue.
We have talked a lot about the differences between male sports and women sports but many forget that there are some sports that women can’t even play like football. Football is the most popular sport in the United States and we still don’t have a female league or even a female team.
Recently the NCAA has been under strife because of the weight rooms given to the athletes during march madness. The men were giving the huge state-of-the-art gyms while the women were giving a couple of weights. Only after they were called out did they finally give the women the weight room that they deserved.
Overall women for decades have been treated terribly in athletics whether it is just schoolyard games or professional sports. One of the things that must be implemented in order to change the way that women are viewed in sports is giving women the same pay and opportunities as men.
I agree! EQUAL PAY!