We have talked a lot recently about the feminist movement and i think it is interesting how women's sports have come so far, but yet, they still seem so far away from being equal or equitable.
Women have worked hard for over 100 years to try to create equality in sport, but it just has not happened. Large steps have been made in the process, but nothing that creates a fair or equal playing field. Men have an advantage.
There have been women that have helped in the process to at least get women to where they are today. Gertrude Ederle showed that women can be better than men by swimming the English Channel faster than any male ever before, Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a huge tennis match, and Serena Williams and Annika Sorenstam just being great role models and athletes for future women athletes.
Title 9 has also helped to create equity. Women are someday going to at least be equitable to men, but i just do not think that it is possible to be equal to men and the reason for this is ESPN/media coverage. Fans are not nearly as interested in seeing womens sports on the news as they are in mens. It may not be fair, but it is true and it may be unfortunate, but it is the way it is. People have more interest in male sports and it is shown in comparison to the NBA to WNBA. The other day, i saw that the WNBA championship was just won and i never even knew they were in the playoffs. It is crazy the lack of coverage that they receive in comparison to male sports. Although i am not incredibly interested in female sports, i still think that there should be at least some equity between the genders because the distance and interest between the two is very large.
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It is interesting to me that you attribute the lack of interest and coverage of women's sports to ESPN. I definitely agree with you, and it is something we will be considering in the weeks ahead as we look at the media coverage of males and females in sports.
ReplyDeleteI just feel like there really is not other reason for the lack of interest in women's sports. The women work just as hard as men to try to earn the respect of men, but they never will because there is very little coverage.
ReplyDeleteThe Men's NCAA Tournament is held on four days that people want to watch TV and have people over to watch the games, while the Women's NCAA Tournament is only on two popular days to do this and those two days are the same as the men's tournament.
So yes, ESPN does cover the women's tournament, but is it fair. Not really because the likeliness of people flipping back and forth between the men and women is not very good. More than likely people are just going to keep watching the men's games and not pay any attention to the women.
I wonder how you feel about your responses from earlier in the semester after talking about the Kian article when Brian taught the class. Did this change any of your thinking?
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