Stereotypes In Sports

Matthew Troutman
ENG 101
Dr. Hanson
Gender Narrative
Sports
Over the course of a century, America has drastically changed its stance on many gender related topics. A century ago, women were prohibited from voting. The Civil Rights Act granted equality for all people regardless of race or ethnicity. Women began to voice their outrage in the 1970’s over the lack of respect they received and demanded some in return. Nowadays, the concept of gender roles in the family virtually cease to exist. And up until recently, gay marriage has finally been legalized in all fifty states. Stereotypes used to incorrectly define men and women, but now they seem like a thing of the past. Misconceived ideas about how a man or woman should act have been completely
That is no longer the case. While there are still some gender discrepancies, America has truly come a long way from where it originally started. Out of all the places that I would witness a gender inequalities, sports became the main culprit. From an early age, I slowly began to understand that sports were more than what they appear to be. It was through sports that I would be introduced to my friends and learn important life lessons like the power of teamwork and friendship. Sports would become instrumental to my upbringing and they helped make the person I am today. Unfortunately, I would eventually learn that gender discrimination that still occurs within sports. It discourages me that, despite all of the valiant efforts made by this country to improve gender equality, sports won’t catch up to modern times. Whether it was from personal experience or watching it on TV, I have seen the gender inequalities firsthand on numerous occasions. Although many of the efforts to improve gender
Whether it be merchandise, tickets, or broadcasting rights, sports play a crucial role in almost all colleges around the nation. Thousands of people come together as one, whole collective to cheer on their school in hopes of victory. Millions of people eagerly watch the game on their television with their friends. The more people that show up to and watch the games, the more money the university makes, and it’s a win-win for both parties. Except the problem with this scenario is that women’s athletics don’t nearly get broadcasted on television as much as men’s athletics the amount of attention that men’s athletics get and that is due to the fact the sports, historically speaking, has been a very male-dominated industry. As well as not being broadcasted on television, sports broadcasters such as ESPN are almost completely ignoring women’s athletics as a whole. ESPN’s most notable show, Sports Center, runs for an hour long, and within that one hour, I would say that women receive less than five percent of coverage. This completely insults women as it not only tells women and young girls watching that they can’t compete with men but it also insinuates that women still aren’t on the same level as men. The fact that men’s sports are referred to as just sports, an example of this would be the National Basketball Association (NBA), and women’s sports are labeled as stated, an example would be