ART BY JOSEPH MENDOZABy GARY LEE
STAFF WRITER
Ever wonder why no women’s team has ever played in the Super Bowl?
Sports like football, baseball and basketball have captured the hearts of many sports fans across the globe. Despite this, these sports, along with many others, have created unequal gender representation in athletes for decades.
In general, sports are competitions for fame, fortune and recognition, thus will always result in winners and losers. As it stands, it was the male sports that have always proven to be the winner.
Historically, the sports industry has continued to place female sports below male sports in more ways than one. For instance, according to the Seattle Times, the National Commission for Certifying Agencies found out that in 2017, the Division one athletic department spent about twice the amount of funds on male sports than on female sports. If this is any indicator, male sports have clearly taken the spotlight as the more valued competition.
Oftentimes in cases like high school where popularity is the key to the survival of the sport, male sports teams are the ones who often attract the most attention towards the school. Thus male sports teams become well funded and recognized leaving female sports teams underfunded and underappreciated. Likewise, even within smaller institutions like high school there are conflicts. Many high schools such as Oakland high school had to cut half of their sports teams, most being girl sports teams, to allow the male sports teams to stay funded. For some other cases, the budgets of education itself are cut from the school just to allow more popular sports to stay.
Moreover, sometimes in male sports games, the team may not always be victorious. Despite this fact, if the season was horrible and unfavorable, the schools would still honor them and give the team a celebration. Although the celebration is unfair, it is very much reasonable as it is important to commemorate the students who gave their best and still not come out victorious.
The fact that these sports teams get celebrated no matter what their performance is, is unfair to female sports teams. A prime example of such an event is the Superbowl, an event that is widely known and celebrated throughout the world, yet only males were allowed to participate. Another instance of such conditions is the homecoming, the event that happens at the beginning of every school year in most high schools. The event often focuses on honoring the football team of the school in their last game of the season. The common factor between these events is that they are all widely watch, but most importantly they are all male-dominated. The celebration themselves is held no matter the results of the season.
On the other hand, much of the bias surrounding female sports team can be summed up in physiques, where the body of women is said to not suited for sports; ability, the abilities of women are less than that of men; and intelligence, where women are said to be too simpleminded to play sports. Many sports fans from the older generations would argue that male sports teams are fair and just due to the players being able to show true competitiveness to create a more exciting game. Additionally, they would state that since males are known to be physically stronger, the male sports would always have the better team. Naturally, the older generations would have this way of thinking due to the lack of competitive female sports during their time.
However, although male sports are largely more popular than female sports, most of the reasons why people believe women’s sports teams are inferior can be summed up in a few stereotypes or false accusations. Moreover, even despite the advantages of the biological stronger male physique, women also have their own achievement in the field of sports and athletics, according to the National Public Radio Olympic coverage, in the 2016 Rio Games, female teams returned with more gold medals than the male teams did.
In short, while society may argue that male and female sports should remain indifferent, in actuality, the treatment of each side is still vastly different, whether it be at school, the outside world or even on the media. It is blatantly unfair to put other types of sport such as female sport at such an economic disadvantage, those who enjoy sports should be treated equally in a fair and just manner no matter who they are or what sport they enjoy.