Gender equality in sport

As the previous post showed, girls need the law to help create gender equality in sports. The real reason we want equal opportunity for our daughters to play sports is so they too can derive the psychological, physiological and sociological benefits of sports participation. Sport has been one of the most important socio-cultural learning experiences for boys and men for many years. Those same benefits should be afforded to our daughters.

Womens Sports Foundation
Teenage female athletes are less than half as likely to get pregnant as female non-athletes. Women who are active in sports and recreational activities as girls feel greater confidence, self-esteem and pride in their physical and social selves.

According to a 1995 survey of boys and girls ages 12-16, female adolescents high in leisure time physical activity are significantly less likely to initiate cigarette smoking than those in moderate and low leisure time activity groups. Research suggests that girls who participate in sports are more likely to experience academic success and graduate from high school than those who do not play sports.

One to three hours of exercise a week over a woman's reproductive lifetime (the teens to about age 40) may bring a 20-30% reduction in the risk of breast cancer, and four or more hours of exercise a week can reduce the risk almost 60%.



When women's sports aren't covered by the print and electronic media, the only body images left are advertisements and general news and features that most often offer sexist, anorexic or other physically unrealistic portrayals of females. Such images put a great deal of pressure on girls and women to conform. The pressure of these unrealistic expectations often results in girls avoiding sports activities which require them to demonstrate "unfeminine" characteristics such as strength, power, aggression or to lose their physical "beauty" because of sweat, dirt and other disruptions commonly experienced in sports. If a girl doesn't participate in sports by the time she is 10 years old, there is less than a 10% chance that she will be playing when she is 25.

Research shows that boys and girls between the ages of six and nine -- and their parents -- are equally interested in sports participation. Even though our daughters are not as likely to be discouraged from playing sports as they were ten years ago, they simply aren't encouraged to the same extent as little boys.

One of the arguments against gender equity in sport has been that providing opportunities for our daughters will somehow kill the sport of football, a sport that is supposedly generating the funds to support all other men's and women's sports programs.

As part of college budget cutbacks, many institutions have tried to eliminate women's teams (along with men's teams) in an effort to trim athletics costs.



Interestingly this sort of discrimination is seen mostly in field sports, but not in indoor games like gymnastics or swimming. Is this due to the fact that girls look like girls in these sports...but not in hockey or soccer?