Female athletes for the past four decades have been given equal opportunity to represents themselves in all different types of sports. These sports have ranged from dance, gymnastics, soccer, volleyball, and recently boxing. Women have fought for equal rights to play alongside men at a high competitive level in sports. Ever since the passage of Title IX, which is a law that ensures the equal funding and opportunity for girls and women in sports at federally funded educational institutions, females have taken full advantage of the equal treatment law (Hardin, p. 123, 2011).
Even though women have been given, by law, equal rights and participation to all sets of professional sports something has still been majorly lacking in equality terms. Women sports coverage rate is extremely low when comparing to men sports. Research conducted has looked at the underlying problem, asking questions like why wouldn’t women watch other women compete in a professional sport? Observations are made regarding how women’s sports are being publicized and covered and that the discussion is centered on femininity, grace, and beauty. Along with male sports being the overall dominate gender in sports, both on the field and when reporting sports news.
An article wrote by Tracy Everbach discussed the comparison of women’s sports coverage in both female and male edited newspaper sports sections. Her research findings about women’s presents in sports related magazines and newspaper showed a reason as to why women are so difficult to find in American sports pages. According to the Associated Press Sports Editors, in 2006 reported that ninety percent of sports editors were in fact male (Everbach, p.55, 2007). Due to the huge lack of female managers and employees in newspaper sports departments may be reason to the death of women’s sports coverage.
The article, Female athleticism on the cinema screen, discusses the concerns about sports and cinema and the troubling figure of the female athlete. Katharina Lindner discusses the sense of gender-appropriateness found in particular athletic sports. Examples are that football, boxing, and other physical contact sports are associated with masculinity and male sports. While skating, synchronized swimming, and other non-contact sports are considered to carry a feminine and female quality. These gender assigned sports have much to do with the physical activities involved. Men are found in sports involving violence and aggression, while women participate in graceful and aesthetically pleasing activities. It’s hardly ever that we see the gender assumed for the sport being the opposite sex.
A huge breakthrough for women’s sport happened in the 2012 Olympics. Female athletes were allowed to compete in competitive boxing for the first time in history. There’s the common idea centered on boxing, that it’s been a male-centered and masculine dominant sport. With women allowed to enter the ring the masculinity of the sport become threatened. Women aren’t deemed appropriate or acceptable in boxing and in doing so boxing labels them as “gender troubled” (Lindner, p 465, 2012). The introduction of women boxing was seen with considerable contradiction and ambiguities. The only reason why people would feel this way is due to how women are shown and portrayed around the world.
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