Women and Professional Sport

[HowsTheSerenity]

I was drving along today and I saw one teeny sign stating that the womens world cup rugby tournament was on next week.

It made me sad that if this was the mens then there would be advertising, sponsorship signs up, crowds, banners, tv coverage etc.
All the women get is an AA sign.

It is a shame how womens sport is still so under represented.

If anyone here is playing then good luck!!!!

Especially since the England women's teams are much better at sport than the men's teams are, in comparison with other countries.

Rugby for example, wikipedia tells me that England been winners or runners up in every women's rugby world cup. (There have been 4). England's men have only won once and been runners up once.

Cricket: England's men's team have never won the cricket world cup. The women's team have won three times. Also the women's world cup started two years earlier (fascinating stuff I am learning tonight).

Everyone is crap at football though :)

It is sad, I would love to watch some of the women's matches - are they being shown on TV? And England are hosting it? FFS, there is no publicity at all!

It's a deliberate policy, to try and marginalise sport as something only weirdy women who are vaguely unfeminine do.

I got DD to watch Bend it like Beckham this week, emphasising that Keira Knightly is the same actress who wears that lovely dress in Pirates of the Caribbean...

NB - rugby, i meant to say "England's men have only won once and been runners up once in the last 4 world cup tournaments".

Nobody watches women's sport; no money; no attention; nobody watches women's sport. Unless it's tennis, or some other event taking place at the same time as a men's event.

TBH although in a way I do deplore this, I also want to be realistic. I used to compete in a sport where strength is paramount. Watching women's teams was a different experience from watching the men's teams; a LOT slower. For a power sport, there didn't seem much point in watching, although competing was brilliant and I regretted all the women who would never see an event/know about the sport because they might have enjoyed taking part.

But I want to watch the women's rugby world cup! At least as much as I wanted to watch the men's one. At least we have a fighting chance of winning this one. If there was the publicity and hype around this that there was around the men's one, people would watch FGS.

It us being held at Twickenham. It starts at the end of August.

I remember being in Bath and there was a world cup cricket match between England and NZ. If it were the men then there would be hordes of fans waiting to greet the buses. There was no one. My family (who were visiting from Australia) stood by and cheered like loons when the got off the bus. The people walking by thought we were odd. Oh well.

The argument that no-one watches women's sport is such a common one but also a misleading one. The media have it in their power to change attitudes and get people interested in sports that have otherwise been minority. They also have the power to create personalities/celebrities within a sport that people can identify with. Maktaitai I understand what you are saying about women being slower - it can certainly make a sport different. But why does that make it any less impressive to other women or why is there less point in watching? Power is relative surely and comparing men's power with women's power is only relevant if they are competing against each other.
I am also involved in a power/endurance sport and the male attitudes within the sport reflect society's view of women in general. "Physical superiority" is a phrase often bandied around as is the argument that women are slower and therefore will never be as good as men. And the amount of time that the men complain that the women don't train as much as them (which isn't necessarily true) makes me wonder exactly how much training these men actually do with all their pontificating! I have generally found people who want to win, train as much as they need to win!
Unfortunately sport in general is male dominated so the media and the sports governing bodies pander to the male egos needs. The sport I am involved in doesn't have equality in Olympic events - there are more male events than womens and one of the sports disciplines is completely omitted for women. How are you supposed to get women interested and participating in sport, raise standards etc when you don't even get the support from the top?
Sorry for the rant - this is one of my bug bears! And I add my name to the list of people who want to watch the women's rugby!

That's really interesting, scallops. I don't understand why anyone would think the public would prefer to watch England's men losing, than England's women winning. I agree with you that it is a self-fulfilling prophesy - the medis could give a lot more publicity and hype to individual female players, to the teams and to the tournaments. They just...don't.

It's weird that in athletics generally the public remembers the ones who win or nearly win - Tim Henman, Paula Radcliffe, Rebecca Adlington etc. But in team sports it's boys only and we never even get to see the women winning.