Many people imagine sexism solely stays in small corners of our society, when actually it’s woven into its very cloth. Nowhere is that this extra true than sports.
Did the highest paid male soccer participant in the world, Christiano Ronaldo, makes about $280 million yearly? While the lesser-known, world’s highest paid feminine soccer participant, Trinity Rodman, simply signed a record-breaking contract for simply $2 million a yr.
Despite their equal regard in their leagues, Ronaldo earns 140 occasions the cash as Rodman.
Clearly, there may be nonetheless a protracted option to go in phrases of gender pay disparities. One main power behind each the pay and coverage discrepancies between males and women’s sports is the proven fact that the media perpetuates a male-centered athletic ambiance.
Take the nomenclature of sports, for instance. In conversations surrounding males’s sports they’re simply thought-about “sports,” whereas the “women” in feminine sports is all the time highlighted.
Whether that’s the “Women’s World Cup” versus the “World Cup” or the Women’s National Basketball Association versus the National Basketball Association or Professional Women’s Hockey League versus the National Hockey League, the emphasis on female-centric sports makes the divide much more apparent.
Boston University’s personal hockey groups’ Instagram pages highlight this discrepancy. The males’s workforce’s username on the platform is “TerrierHockey,” and the women’s workforce is “TerrierWHockey,” having to differentiate themselves as the women’s model.
If we have a look at the Winter Olympics, the males’s hockey gold medal sport between the United States and Canada obtained about 26 million viewers on NBC and Peacock collectively. The women’s workforce obtained a peak of 7.7 million viewers, cited as a record-breaking viewership in women’s hockey historical past.
Now the sexist notion of these statistics would declare that these variations spotlight how persons are extra in males’s athletics than women’s. However, completely different kinds of sports media are responsible resulting from their disproportionate coverage, consideration, air time and inconsistent promotion.
These not solely undermine the accomplishments of ladies athletes throughout the globe, however neglect to platform them in the first place.
Do you know the way many occasions the women’s U.S. hockey workforce has medaled in the final eight Olympics since their sport was first launched in 1998? Eight occasions. They achieved gold thrice in 2026, 2018 and 1998, silver in 2002, 2010, 2014 and 2022 and one bronze medal in 2006.
Prior to 1998, the U.S. males’s hockey workforce had gained gold twice in 1960 and 1980, successful silver six occasions, and bronze as soon as in 1936. Since 1998, the U.S. males’s hockey workforce has medaled a decent thrice, successful gold this yr and taking house silver in 2002 and 2010. They have medaled a complete of 12 occasions since the Winter Olympics started in 1924.
My intention right here is to not put the success of one workforce over one other. This isn’t a “who has won more” dialog. Rather, it’s a couple of central query underlying their twin success: If each groups have earned excessive accolades in their fields, why aren’t they spoken of in the similar?
What we ought to be highlighting is the proven fact that that is the first time in Winter Olympic historical past the place each the U.S. males and women’s hockey groups gained gold concurrently. However, this historic second was overshadowed by a sexist locker room joke following the males’s Olympic last that got here at the expense of the U.S. women’s hockey workforce.
Minutes after the males’s first gold medal win in 46 years, they obtained a telephone name from President Trump not solely congratulating them, however referencing their future go to to the White House and how they are going to “have to bring the women’s team” joking he would face impeachment in the event that they didn’t. His quip was crudely adopted by intensive locker room laughter.
Disappointedly, the media capitalized on this controversy as an alternative of selling and uplifting each males’s and women’s sports collectively.
We can have fun each women’s and males’s sports groups at the similar time. You will be each a women’s hockey fan and a males’s hockey fan. One workforce’s success doesn’t have to come back at the expense of the different.
We should learn to maintain sexist conduct accountable, condemning each the President’s feedback and the males’s hockey workforce’s response, whereas pushing the narrative to encompass the success of all U.S. athletics and not a male-dominated one.
We ought to be supporting each a societal and media ambiance of mutual respect and shared sense of appreciation. What’s extra, media coverage of ladies in sports wants extra consideration.
It is as much as us to determine how the media maintains a steady cycle of gender inequality in sports, and how we will work to vary this cycle for the higher.