"The Men's game is at 8:00pm."
"When do the men swim?"
"You're really strong for a girl!"
"She must be a lesbian!"
"We can pregame during the girl's game!"
"Did you know our volleyball team is like... really good?"
As a female who played sports for a greater part of my life, these are statements that me and my fellow women are used to hearing. As a female athlete, despite our hard work and dedication, we must always live with the fact that people are inherently uninterested in our events and meets. The girl's game, often before the boys, is over looked and vastly unattended except by parents and loyal fans.
As the levels of sports reaches the pro and international level, one begins to find disproportionately represented athletes in both pay and media coverage. One of the most popular cases of this is with the USA Women's Soccer Team, a team that is vastly more successful than Men's soccer.
Members of the USA Women's Team recently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the U.S. Soccer Federation for unequal pay compared to the Men's team. The complaint basically states that despite the Women's team being more successful than the Men's team on various levels, they continue to receive less pay and compensation in areas ranging from game compensation to sponsorship appearances. The women are paid four times less than the male players, despite recently winning their third World Cup Title, while the men haven't advanced past the quarterfinals since 1930.
According to the NY Daily News, the women's team gets paid $15,000 per player on the World Cup roster, while the men receive $76,000. If the Men's team reaches quarterfinals, the team is awarded $5 million, while the Women's is awarded nothing. If the Women's team WINS the world cup, they receive $1.8 million, while the men receive a whopping $9.3 million. All of this is displayed in the table below, made by PBS.
But the men earn the U.S. Soccer Federation more money, right? No. According to a budget report from the federation, the women are projected to bring in more than $17 million in revenues by 2017, while the men are expected to create a deficit. The women talk more about this ridiculous issue in this hilarious video produced by the Daily Show.
Not only are women underpaid in sports, they're also talked about and represented differently. From interviews to sports commentators, what's focused on is outfits, hair, the men in the women's lives, their children, etc.
A couple of most recent examples come, of course, from the Rio 2016 Olympics. Take Katinka Hosszu, for example, who, upon setting a new world record in the Women's 400m individual medley, was barely congratulated. Instead the credit for her world record-setting race was given to her husband and coach, who the NBC commentator described as "the guy responsible" for her accomplishments. This is a stark contrast to the reception male victors receive; male athletes are awarded full credit for their hard work.
Another sphere of inequality in the representation of female athletes is the discussion of their looks or mannerisms, rather than their performance. In 2012, after USA gymnast Gabby Douglas won all-around gold, the talk in various forms of media was about her hair. In the first week of the Olympics, she was heavily criticized for not placing her hand on her heart during the USA national anthem, and not standing up to celebrate the victories of her teammates, Aly Raisman and Simone Biles. Aside from the fact that these all-around medals were what she went to Rio for, meaning she has every right to be less than ecstatic, there are also no rules that dictate the placement of hands over the heart during the anthem. Meanwhile, across the Olympic grounds, Michael Phelps stands laughing throughout the national anthem as he receives his gold, and prominent male athletes in various sports are hardly criticized for being tough losers.
Female athletes go through blood and sweat, rigorous training, heartbreak and painful losses, and amazing wins, yet they are overshadowed by the accomplishments of male athletes. Being a female athlete is tough, and although progress is being made in pay and recognition, progress is not equality. To end with some excellent words from Simone Biles:
