Experiences of inequality within sports

[13J]

I am currently studying for a BSc in sports sbd fitness coaching and we are currently looking at gender equality within sport, or more accurately, inequality.

We look at case studies and personal experiences a lot but I’d like to leaen more,

Would anyone share their experiences of either equality, or lack of within their own sporting lives?

I found the examples we were given lacking in sports variety and focusing on only current events, rather those in the past.
I’m not conducting research and won’t be using any of this in my studies.

I’d just like to learn more.

But this is doing your research!

She’s not doing research, just trying to broaden her learning by asking people to share their own experiences. Seems fine to me.

I’ve got a couple of things op, I’ll get to a keyboard (rather than phone keypad) and respond.

OP, here are a couple of examples of casual sexism.

I run in a club and race a lot.
Reports of a race often include a photo of the first person over the line, which is obviously always a man. You very, very rarely see the first woman over the line in the main photo of the report.

In the same vein, the race report will often say "First home for Marble Harriers was Joe Bloggs, well done Joe" despite Josephine's performance actually being relatively better.

Women's achievements are celebrated as well, especially when it comes to recognising if someone got a high placing in their age category e.g. "Rosemarble was 1st female vet 50", it's not that we're ignored just that the default is to celebrate the overall winner. The men's and women's races are separate events, even though we run together.

I have raised this with my club but honestly, while I feel passionate about casual sexism it does come across as quite petty, especially as the people writing the reports are volunteers within the club, and even more so if I am Josephine in the example above! It looks like I just want my moment in the lights. I guess I do a bit , but I mainly speak up so that things change for the generation below me.

Watch the BBC sports news. Any night. Mostly football and only rarely women. It is better during tournaments like Wimbledon or the Olympics. But every day it is men, men, men. When it is women it is poorly filmed and clearly no interviews, often filmed from far away and no one has been sent to cover the event.

For past events look at the first woman to run a marathon in the 70s, the pay of professional female footballers.

Hersport.ie (and it's UK version) have loads of real life examples from a wide variety of sports. From female rugby teams have to change outside as they aren't allowed into the "mens" aka only changing rooms to the drop out rate in sports between teenage girls and boys, they are a great resource.

For past events look at the first woman to run a marathon in the 70s

People are often shocked to learn that the women's marathon was not an Olympic event until 1984.

In September 2012 I started working in a college, I was waiting by the lift and noticed a poster with 3 male boxers on it.

I actually read the words underneath and found out it wasn't actual boxing but the fitness training. And was open to men and women.

Did you notice the date? It was a couple of months since Nicola Adams became the first woman to win a boxing gold medal at the Olympics, something she will always be.

I did email the organiser who actually did see my point.

When a woman became the world darts champion for something like the 5th or 6th time in a row, the BBC showed footage of men.

2012 was the first Olympics where women were able to participate in as many sports as the men. Saudi Arabia were told they had to have females on their team by the IOC. So Saudi added two women but dictated that they had to wear Islamic dress. When South Africa wanted to field a white only team they were banned by sport. Where is the solidarity to women?

Going back to the 1970 / 1980s the first London marathon and the commentators talking about how 'these girls have really come up now through fun runs" they were taking about elite athletes.

About the same time commentators commenting on how much 'sexuality' female gymnasts put in to their floor routines.

BBC sports personality of the year has male dominated shortlists every year, and occasionally all male.

Gym equipment is designed for male bodies.

There is a clip on You tube of a pro golfer Georgia Ball practicing on the driving range and a bloke mansplains to her what she is doing wrong.

Have a look on twitter and see all the mansplaining, including to Martina Navratilova.

My interest is in running.
As @rosemarble states - The men's and women's races are separate events, even though we run together.

Yes!!! People seem to find it a difficult concept to grasp in races where everyone starts at the same time, i.e. local 10ks, marathons etc. I'd say it is improving based on observations of race companies on Instagram and Facebook, they are getting better at posting pictures of the female podium. It's likely come from pressure of people pointing it out, so I continue to do so when I don't see both races covered.

I enjoyed these non fiction books:
Good For A Girl by Lauren Fleshman
Voices from the Hills by Steve Chilton
In Her Nature by Rachel Hewitt

I haven't read yet but it's on my list:
The Path She Runs by Jen Benson

Running events have got much better. Most races have equalised prize money now - I had friends who boycotted a particular race for years because it was still offering a lower-value prize to the female winners and the organisers changed it in the end.

I think media portrayal has got much better with women's running too, with more coverage of elite athletes. It used to be that any amateur men's running stuff was all about training better and getting faster, and most of the women's stuff was about weight loss and exercise, maybe social aspects if you were lucky, as though women can't or wouldn't want to be competitive. (I'm not saying that those aren't also valid reasons to run, but they're not the only ones).

I mean a woman was literally beaten up by a man and the Gold medal snatched from women at the Olympics in the new age of "inclusive boxing". Wtf

OP is specifically looking for examples from the past rather than current issues.
Of course this is a massive issue, don't get me wrong, but it would be a shame (and rather ironic) if this thread becomes dominated by males infiltrating female sport. There are plenty of thread about it.

Thanks so much to everyone who has shared.

@BIWI i should of clarified, ensh I mean is that I am not conducting an actual piece of research and won’t be using anyone’s responses in my work, I am simply interested in learning more.

The coursework features several examples of course, but it was also written by a man,

I remembered this video from 2021:

I am really sorry, app doesn't allow posting youtube links. The video I wanted to share was about training area prepared for US college basketball players tournment. It was showing the inequalities between the equipment given to male and female players.

38 second long video was posted by University of Oregon forward Sedona Prince who showed the fully-stocked weight room given to men's teams for the annual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament. Whilst women were given one rack of weights! Look it up.
Her video going viral led to a gender equity review in college basketball and to changes in the women's event.

Women's gymnastics used to announce an athlete's name and then their weight, but only for the women.

Female figure skaters were forced to wear skirts / dresses. The rules have changed but the routines are partially marked on the costume so few risk not wearing a skirt.

The MCC only allowed women members in 1998. That seems to be when they applied for lottery funding and were turned down because of the policy.

211 years of treating women as second class citizens but when there is money at stake suddenly women are welcome.

How about the FA banning women's teams in 1921? Women's football had a larger following than men's until the ban.

Excellent, one of my favourite topics! Can I please recommend the following organisations to you;

• women in sport. Amazing organisation that cover these topics in depth. Lots of research etc
• this girl can. Sport England campaign to normalise participation for women. They’ve just ran a series of workshops on line and I bet they have a tonne of recordings.
• women in football. I’m not familiar with these as much

The biggest issue I see in my sport (cycling) is lack of women’s road races. Races get cancelled all the time for lack of entrants, and then the women who have registered end up racing in the men’s race (cycling has an open/female system where the men’s races are open to both men and women but the female races are female-only, which can be dispiriting, although the blokes are usually very supportive). It’s a real block to women progressing as with fewer races on the calendar, and more races cancelled, they don’t accumulate points (needed to advance to higher category races) as fast as men do. It also means they need to do a lot more travel to access races if they want to race weekly.

in contrast, we see huge women’s fields for cyclocross (winter off-road cycling).

The main deterrent to entering road races is the risk of events being cancelled due to lack of entrants, and the fact that there are not enough events, so it’s a vicious circle really.

I am older, but when I was at primary scholl there was a boy‘s football team which played against other schools, but nothing at all for the girls - despite many of the girls being better at football initially than the boys. The boys were coached and developed their skills and unsurprisingly became better than the girls. All concluded that boys were better than girls at football (and sport generally)

I think there are still fewer opportunities for girls in many sports.

The German women's gymnastics team comes to mind.
I think it was the previous Olympics (or may have been the World's).
They were penalised for wearing long (as in with legs) leotards.

Then there is the several beach volleyball teams threatened with disqualification for wearing leggings, rather those frankly ridiculous skimpy thongs that are supposed to be the official uniform. This was the Paris Olympics last year.

Out of interest, why couldn’t a women’s cycle race be run at the same time as a men’s cycle race like it seems happens with running and rowing? I assume there are different categories within the men’s (ages and/or points or something), why couldn’t women race each other as a separate category? Why does it need to be a whole separate event, with all the admin, road closures, volunteers etc required?

I appreciate you’re not the one running the races 😂 it just seems like this would be an easy fix, given they’re turning up and racing anyway in the open category? I used to row and while there are 2 solely women’s events in the calendar, the majority are for both sexes with different categories.

The main deterrent to entering road races is the risk of events being cancelled due to lack of entrants,

It seems like the issue is further upstream. The events are there to enter, but not enough women enter them. Why is this? We know women's cycling is not as popular as mens.
I am in a cycle club (novice cyclist) and there are far, far fewer women. I have never felt any bar to me joining the Sunday rides. The club also has a Friday ride just for women. I can never join as I work,

Possibly because the race could be 500 miles away and you have the expense of getting there even if it is cancelled.

Well, it’s not a separate event but a separate race at the same meet which might have multiple races for juniors, men and women, and different categories. The problem with running both men and women’s races at the same time is that the women’s races are usually on a different (shorter) course which creates problems for marshalling, team cars, doctors car etc.

Additionally it gives an unfair advantage to those women who are powerful enough to stick with the men for the first 20 minutes or whatever, they can just sit in the wheels and pull a huge time gap over other riders who might have been competitive with them over the entire course of the race if they hadn’t had the draft advantage at the start. Unlike running, drafting is absolutely key to bike races and if you can get on the wheel of some massive bloke pulling 400W you basically get sucked along. Which means the wee climber who might have trounced you in the hills won’t have a chance to make up the gap, even when you eventually get shelled by the blokes.

I need some new cycling tights. I have been to 3 shops - Decathlon, Halfords and an independent.
Both Decathlon and Halfords had only men's clothing. The independent had a rummage and found some for women.
It's so tedious. I know I can buy online but something like this I really want to try.