United States in 2001 but was later disbanded due to lack of sponsorship. The public’s recent interest in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup and NCAA Women’s College Basketball finals has shown subtle changes. Promisingly, Women’s Professional Soccer was revived in 2009. Another notable exception is the LPGA, which has operated continuously since 1950.
Disparities between Men and Women
Serena Williams took the number one spot for “most-Googled female athlete of 2011,” besting the competition with 125 million results.
Indeed, team sports historically have been difficult to finance and receive less attention than individual sports. Many sports do not have professional teams or opportunities for women. The WNBA has long operated on a loss, and stands are often empty. A women’s professional soccer league was established in the
Women sports stars have long had to defend or emphasize their femininity or been plagued by a gender-biased hypersexuality. Women athletes’ appearances are often stressed more than male athletes’ are. It is no mistake that the most commercially successful female athletes are attractive; Sharapovna stands model-esque at 6’2”, while Danica Keller and countless others have been featured in various men’s magazines. Rarely are men featured in the same way. Others, like tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, have been labeled with the “cuteness” of the girl-next-door, a not-so-subtle attempt at diminishing female athletic ability and
achievement by referring to women as “girls.” Dr. Mary Jo Kane, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, has researched how women athletes are portrayed in the media for decades. “Female athletes are significantly more likely to be portrayed in highly-sexualized photos. How pretty they are and how sexy they are is emphasized more than men,” said Kane. Double standards are even evident in the types of sports women play. Deemed “painful,” traditionally masculine sports like rugby and boxing for women have slowly become mainstreamed (through movies like Million Dollar Baby and personalities like Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad), but are still far from being accepted as sports for girls and women, probably due to their lack of femininity. This often is related back to homophobic undertones, a largely taboo issue in women’s sports. Women are often labeled lesbians or “unwomanly” if they show athletic ability. Characteristic of Chris Evert in the ‘70s was a politeness and femininity that compared considerably to male contemporaries John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors who were loud, rude, and macho. Although times have changed since then, this double standard is still evident in
May/June 2012
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