Sexual discrimination rampant in sports arena
Thu 12 June 2008
Lynne Green, Creative writing
Discrimination against women in the sporting arena is still a regular occurrence, with women receiving less prize money and media attention than their male counterparts.
Women’s sports received consistently less airtime than men’s sports.
The Media Awareness Network quoted statistics from a report on the media coverage of women’s sports.
It showed that only 8.7 per cent of airtime was devoted to women’s sports, in contrast to the 88.2 per cent devoted to men’s sports.
These statistics were collected from sports coverage on three network affiliates in Los Angeles over six weeks.
The Media Awareness Network also said the report noted male commentators tended to use a different style of language for the different genders.
The report said 97 per cent of sports commentators were men, and they used language that inferred a higher status for male athletes.
The BBC said an example of biased attitudes was in the sport of tennis.
In 2002 Wimbledon increased the prize money for all the players, but there was still discrepancy between men’s and women’s prize money.
The men's champion received £525,000 (AU$1,087,300), while winner of the women's event received £486,000 (AU$1,006,500), about a 7 per cent difference.
In 2006, the ABC reported Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam tennis event not to present equal prize money to men’s and women’s champions.
The pressure on Wimbledon mounted.
A year later, the ABC reported that Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the US Open were to pay men and women equal amounts of prize money.
Some male athletes complained about the policy change.
Former Australian tennis champion John Alexander protested against the change, on grounds that men play harder and for longer.
Mr Alexander claimed it was sex discrimination to pay the women the same amount.
Male golfers were also protesting against changes in their sport.
In 2004 the ABC reported on comments made by Australian golfer Greg Norman and South African golfer Ernie Els.
Both spoke out against women playing in men’s events, calling the practice a gimmick.
The ABC said in a comparison between the top earners for the PGA and the LPGA, Tiger Woods earned a record of $US10,867,052 from his 2007 PGA tour.
The 2007 LPGA earnings of highest earning professional female golfer, Lorena Ochoa, were $US4,364,994.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said part of its mission was the promotion of women in sport.
But the IOC had unequal gender representation within some sports.
Female ski jumpers were campaigning to participate in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010.
The BBC reported on the Kuwait meeting of the IOC, where the final decisions on events for Vancouver were made.
In relation to women’s ski jumping, IOC vice president Gunilla Lindberg said "in our analysis, there are not enough athletes and not enough countries".
Even after campaigning, there was no last minute inclusion of the women’s ski jumping.
Professional and amateur women’s sports sufferred from inequality regarding access to facilities, equipment and coaching.
The ABC reported the anger generated after the rejection of a State Government application for funding to build women’s change rooms at the oval used by the Ballarat's East Point Football Netball Club.
The netballers were forced to use the men’s change rooms.
In contrast, the BBC had a positive report about increased funding to improve facilities for female athletes at the Newham Sports Academy in Britain.
However, the same article exposed a gap of £1000(AU$2071) between the subsistence funding provided for male and female elite athletes in Great Britain.
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