In America’s history, we are at a point where woman are expected to be empowered, and held to the same standards as men, but women are also held to unreasonable expectations that act as obstacles for us to reach an equal status of a man.
Do you remember sitting in a social studies classroom on a warm May afternoon staring longingly out the window while your teacher played a video on the Women’s Suffrage movement and a majority of people had zero clue what the real reasoning behind the movement was?
How have we gotten to a place in society to expect and encourage women to “be a man”, yet society refuses to accept women can be better than men?
Recently, I was looking at a classmate’s article how she found herself needing to shave her legs and wear a dress to sit in a box, in order to feel “professional” in a setting where men can wear gym clothes and no one would bat an eye at the words that flow from his mouth.
She is right. While, we have taken great strides in women’s equality, we still need to put in extra work to reap the benefits.
The community regarding athletics is no exception to this whether it be a male vs. female team competing, or a female reporting a high demand men’s competition. Most notably, it is evident that male sports get a majority of the spotlight in a collegiate competition setting. When the university is advertising programs they usually will “show off” the men’s football, basketball, and lacrosse programs. It is astonishing that even programs who barely can consider themselves “competitors” are used as a marketing technique to bring money in, while a female sport may be a multiple time conference championship winner, and consistent contender in the NCAA post-season tournament, yet still not be used to promote the university. Understanding there is a level of exploitation there, why would a university not look to attract strong, young women? Would that not be a better way to promote the place of women in society?
Think back to watching a sports broadcast on ESPN- how often was a female involved in male sport’s broadcasting? How often was a female sport being broadcasted? If broadcasted, was it during primetime hours, or an off time when the station needs a place holder?
Taking journalism classes over the past few semesters has really opened my eyes to the lack of support women receive. Do not get me wrong—there are men who are great supporters of women and show it, and there are great supporters of women and say it. Actions speaker louder than words. Men say a lot they respect a strong women, but maybe they mean someone who is strong enough, without being a threat?
I have found that it certainly is hard to fight and earn respect as a women in the sports community. Since being athletic is deemed more as a masculine trait, men have no problem spewing bullshit in gym clothes and anything that resembles a word is taken as God’s spoken word. A woman could be dressed in a suit, full face, hair done, nails polished, and have researched a topic for days to know it by heart and still be deemed invalid? There is not even a grey area within this concept.
Take a step back men, because who runs the world?
As Beyonce would say, girls!