I am a woman, and I am an athlete. I am proud to say I am an athlete, but I am ashamed at the way society has made me feel like I am not good enough. People want to watch "real sports." I have heard too many times about women's basketball or women's golf being a joke. I'm here to tell you it's no joke. Female athletes work just as hard as male athletes to be great, but they are nowhere near as appreciated.
People seem to think that women's sports aren't worth watching because women aren't as strong as men, women aren't as tough as men, or women aren't as mean as men. They want to see the violence and the excitement of men's sports. But those people are putting women's sports in a box. The female athletes I know are some of the toughest people I know. The rules are different for some women's sports, and that in itself proves that society doesn't think we can handle it.
People seem to be more worried about our wardrobe malfunctions than whether we've won or not. If I am working my a** off, you can be sure my pretty little skirt isn't going to stay perfectly in place. If I am running at world-record pace, my butt cheek might stick out, but it doesn't matter to me in that moment and it shouldn't matter to anyone else. You don't see men being analyzed on their nip slips. You see them analyzed on their talent. Women deserve the same respect. Women are athletes, too.
We get criticized for "looking like men" if we are too strong or fit when that is what makes us great athletes. I once heard someone say Serena Williams looked like a guy because the had big, muscular arms. All I had to say to that was if I had that many trophies in my case, I wouldn't care how big my arms were. Serena is hot, and she can work a tennis skirt, but I bet she wasn't thinking about that when she was trying to win the US Open. Female athletes are not dainty, and sports were not meant to make us look good. I am strong, and I should not be ashamed of my physique just because I'm not soft.
A fabulous example of strong female athletes is the U.S. women's soccer team. They are doing good things for women in sports. Their victory in the World Cup brought more attention to a female sport than almost any other game in history. That's only the beginning, though. According to an NPR article by Frank Deford, hardly anyone cared about the U.S. women's basketball team winning the world championship last year. He attributes the lack of enthusiasm to the fans (or lack thereof). Even other women aren't willing to pay to watch women play sports, and that's where we have to start -- supporting our fellow females.
Women's sports are on the rise, but there is only so far they can go unless someone is willing to watch and appreciate them for what they are.
