Attitudes to women in sport has been a long and contentious issue and despite a rise in viewing figures across the world for female sport, it has still be labelled as “weak”, “slow” and “boring” in a recent survey carried out by Insure4Sport.
The survey found that sports viewed as ‘unisex’ such as Tennis, Swimming and Athletics are the most watched women’s sports and they have produced some of the highest profile female athletes. These sports also often run simultaneously to the men’s event, such as during Wimbledon. The survey found that of the five main events in the sporting calendar the Wimbledon final had the least male bias.
In comparison, the largest disparity is in football. Two of the biggest issues for women in sport is the monetary value and subsequent airtime on mainstream media. The women’s game is still dwarfed by the men’s in terms of monetary worth. The prize money offered by FIFA for the Women’s 2015 World Cup was just 2.6% of the total prize money for the 2014 Men’s World Cup, despite 750 million people who watched at least a minute of the women’s final: a worldwide, record-breaking figure for the women's game.
An article in the Telegraph presented recent research conducted by the BBC, showing that out of 68 governing bodies of sport, 83% of sports now pay men and women the same amount of prize money. This figure is most impressive when it's compared to statistics from 1973 when not one sport rewarded men and women equally.
One of the most worrying aspects about the airtime women's sport receives is the attitude of the general public. Insure4Sport found that 40% of those surveyed do not think men and women’s sporting events and matches should get the same amount of TV coverage. Men’s events are usually much more generously sponsored, which leads some to argue that the events are more exciting, highlighting how women’s sports will struggle to grow without support from TV and major network coverage.
Women’s sport can also be disregarded in media coverage. For example, last year many pundits and reports of the male England team’s campaign for the FIFA World Cup claimed that it was the first time since 1990 that the national side had reached the semi-finals of the competition. This statement was of course true of the men, who last got there in Italia ’90, however England’s women’s team reached the semi-final in 2015 and ultimately achieved third in the competition.
The discourse surrounding women in sport is also problematic for other reasons. Cambridge University Press produced research labelled “Aesthetics over athletics when it comes to women in sport” that explores the language used surrounding female sportspeople, concluding that "language around women focuses disproportionately on the appearance, clothes and personal lives of women".
Some of the specific discourse they explored proved that the words ‘men’ or ‘man’ are associated with verbs such as ‘beat’, ‘win’ and ‘dominate’ while ‘women’ and ‘woman’ is associated with verbs such as ‘compete’, ‘participate’ and ‘strive’. Other associations to women in sport are ‘older’, ‘pregnant’ and ‘married’ while the more common word combinations for men are adjectives such as ‘fastest’, ‘strong’ and ‘great’.
Women’s sport is almost always the significant ‘other’: ‘football’ refers to men but the female game is always ‘women’s football’. This is unlikely to change any time soon due to the disparity in popularity, however there are aspects that are easier to change. The attitude of women’s sport being second rate is becoming provably untrue and it seems the sporting industry is, as a whole, improving. However, in a society where gender equality is moving to the forefront of many industries, sport is still playing catch up.