Gender discrimination
In 1972, the United States Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendment Act. This act banned sexual discrimination in education programs which received federal funding. In the area of athletics, it required universities which received federal funding to provide equal athletic opportunities for men and women. Still after over thirty years, women in sports still seek equality by the same treatment or opportunities that are given to males. Even though in the past few years, women's sports have increased in popularity forming new leagues such as the WNBA, a professional women's football league, women's soccer, and more. Sports in general is a mere reflection of society. In sport, people with the money have the power and make all the decisions. This leads to hegemony, where the powerful remain in control. In today's society, female sports do not get the recognition that men's sports do in that they do not make the same amount of money, the same amount of respect, and the same amount of television coverage. Gender discrimination's root comes from the interest and desires of society. The people in control, the older white males are biased towards male sports because the action is much faster and mu
The female athletes also lose out because even though they essentially play the same sports as males, they are not treated as equals. The softball diamond is a lot smaller and the distance between bases is shorter as well and the amount of innings women softball players play is not nine innings compared to male baseball players. Thus, no matter what sport you look at, the amount of each game, the size of the balls, or the courts are changed to accommodate the success for female athletes. The women also wear skirts and tight tops, instead of wearing shorts because they need to appeal to the male gender as well. The owner of the clothing line that Kournikova endorses would also benefit from this greatly because many women would like how the clothing may look on her and believe that if they bought the clothing, they may possibly look or resemble her in some way. Due to the fact that sport is a reflection of society and society enjoys watching men play and do not really value women's sport they are thus not given the same type of media coverage. However, if a huge sex icon that greatly appeals to men and society such as the tennis player, Anna Kournikova is scheduled to play, the network would likely televise it because they believe there would be a huge fan base that would watch it. The owners of teams and of television networks are using the female athlete's body as a tool for a mean, or in this case a way in making more money. Female athletes are frequently looked upon as not being as entertaining or lacking athleticism compared to male athletes. This may possibly never change or may take many years to see positive steps being taken because we as a society are so naive of not valuing women's sports the same as men's sports for the reason that women's sports are not played as intensely, aggressively, or as fast pace compared to their counterparts. Whenever Anna Kournikova goes on tennis tours, a company would be willing to sponsor the tournament that she plays in because many people would watch, thus promoting their goods. It can be argued that women athletes play more of an intelligent and less "show boat" type of game, the type of game we are accustomed to when these sports were first created. Even after Title IX, females still find themselves being discriminated and suppressed by society. The discrimination of women is restricting what they are capable of or using their bodies as sex icons to help grab the attention of male viewers benefit the owners of the teams and the owners of television networks.
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