Gender Inequality in Sports

Growing up, some of my favorite memories were spent at my grandmother's house. Her walls were covered in framed photographs and newspaper clippings, plaques, and artifacts from around the world. One of my favorite pictures was of her softball team. When I asked her if she was any good, she replied, "I was the best on the team."

Sports were just one aspect of life that my grandmother pursued confidently. She denied my grandfather marriage seven times in order to finish her nursing degree (back in those days, if she would have accepted, she would have had to withdraw from nursing school). However, I resonated a lot with her involvement in sports simply because I was very athletic myself. Ask people about gender inequality in sport, and a majority would say that women's sports are just boring and not as exciting as men's. And this statement is fine, because it is their preference, but I think a lot of women and girls have to fight a lot of scrutiny to be taken seriously in sports. In many cases, women find popularity if they are not only good but also attractive; i.e., Skylar Diggins, Candace Parker, Maria Sharapova. If fathers want their daughters to play sports, they generally say they are raising their daughters like boys. Women sports are generally always looked at as second to mens, and women are more likely than men to be punished more severely for un-sportsmen-like behavior (even the name says something, un-sportsMEN).

One of my favorite movies that displays gender inequality in sport is A League of Their Own (1992) . One of the two main characters is named Dottie, which happens to be the name of my grandmother. The story is about how Walter Harvey proposed a professional baseball league for women during WWII.

Here are some quotes from the movie that display some common events/reactions to women and sports:

Mae Mordabito: [During the league's publicity drive] What if at a key moment in the game my, my uniform bursts open and, uh, oops., my bosoms come flying out? That, that might draw a crowd, right?
Doris Murphy: You think there are men in this country who ain't seen your bosoms?

Dave Hooch: I know my girl ain't so pretty as these girls, but that's my fault. I raised her like I would a boy. I didn't know any better. She loves to play. Don't make my little girl suffer because I messed up raising her. Please.

Ira Lowenstein: This is what it's going to be like in the factories, too, I suppose, isn't it? "The men are back, Rosie, turn in your rivets." We told them it was their patriotic duty to get out of the kitchen and go to work; and now, when the men come back, we'll send them back to the kitchen.
Walter Harvey: What should we do - send the boys returning from WAR back to the kitchen?

Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104694/