Women in Sports

Women in Sports
It’s just 40 years ago that Katherine Switzer who officially entered the traditionally all-men Boston Marathon was violently attacked during her run. Her aggressor, a race official accused her of “ruining his race”. Her offense: She was guilty of being women. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8aXZt1GL2s&feature=related>, Gender Inequality in Sports, Dec 13 2009
As much worldwide uproar as this incident created, it could almost be called insignificant regarding the historical inequality between men and women when it comes to sports. Events like this have been happening throughout the entire history of female athletes. Until now, female athletes often are not –formally or informally- recognized parts of the athletic community and throughout history; their disciplines have been added only lately to the list of officially recognized competitions. But what looks like a success over time will vastly fade considering that as a female athlete one is forced to prove one’s “belonging to the female gender” first through gender testing. This practice however is the result of highly criticized rules that do not reflect the complexity of the issue. Further on, the widely known salary gap between male and female is another factor of disadvantage for women in sports. Already, women are only earning 75 pennies on a man’s dollar in a regular life job, but when it comes to sports this difference can only be called tremendous and as a result women are often forced to fill the gap by looking for additional ways of earning. These “side jobs” frequently offend their dignity and honor as an athlete and as a woman.

776 B.C. - The first Olympics are held in ancient Greece. Women are excluded, so they compete every four years in their own Games of Hera, to honor the Greek goddess who ruled over women and the earth. http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/timeline.htm
After that occasional achievements like Elisabeth Wilkinson, who entered a boxing ring in 1722 or Englishwoman Alicia Meynell, who defeated the leading male jockey, Buckle, in a race in 1805. In 1856, Catherine Beecher publishes Physiology and Calisthenics for Schools and Families, the first fitness manual for women. However, it will take until the next century that occasional events for women athletes arise. At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens 1896, no women competed, as the organizers felt that their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." http://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/women.htm
 In the beginning of the 20. century, physical Education instructors strongly oppose competition among women, fearing it will make them less feminine even though the first 19 female athletes had just participated in the modern Olympics Games in Paris, France, to play in just three sports: tennis, golf, and croquet. One of them, Margaret I. Abbott, was  very successful and succeeded as the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal. She won the nine-hole golf tournament by shooting a 47.
The 2000 Olympics was the first time that women were allowed to compete in the Olympics in weightlifting.
There are only two Olympic sports where men and women compete directly against each other;equestrian and sailing, though in sailing it is only now one event. Tennis (in early Games in since 2012) and Badminton (since 1996) have mixed doubles events.
By 2012, every member national Olympic committee had sent female athletes sent to the games for the first time.





The media is guilty of shaping very different ideas of female and male athletes. Women in sports are regularly degraded by pictures about their femininity instead of their performance. Female athletes deserve to be celebrated and respected for their talent and performance – not their bodies.
Gender testing was first introduced at the Olympics in 1968, for the Winter Games in Grenoble. These tests were compulsory for female athletes, possibly due to fears that male athletes would pose as female athletes and have an unfair advantage over their competitors. At the 1976 Summer Olympics, it has been reported that the only female competitor not to have to submit to a sex test was Princess Anne of the UK, who was competing as a member of the UK equestrian team. As the daughter Queen Elizabeth II, such a test was seen as inappropriate. As someone has pointed out, do they really need to test the equestrian riders, as the men and women compete against each other.
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics eight athletes failed the gender verification tests but were all subsequently cleared by physical examinations.
Mandatory gender testing was officially stopped by the International Olympic Committee in 1999, though there can be evaluation of individual athletes if there is any question regarding gender identity.
The IAAF have guidelines for gender verification adopted in April 2011 (largely in response to the issues with Semenya), in which female athletes now have to fall below a certain threshold of testosterone. For many female athletes the new eligibility criteria means compulsory hormonal therapy.
For the 2012 Games, officials have implemented a test of testosterone levels. However, unlike past tests which were given to all competitors in women's events, this test will be administered only when the chief medical officer of a national Olympic committee or a member of the IOC's medical commission requests it. The new rules disqualify athletes from women's events if they have testosterone levels in the normal male range, which is 7 to 30 nanomoles per liter in the blood. The top range for women is just below 3 nanomoles per liter.
http://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/gender-testing.htm


The root of the issue stems from the fact that women naturally produce testosterone at different levels. Testosterone is probably the most significant factor when it comes to athletic performance, as it's the hormone that helps build muscle. Clearly, women that produce lots of testosterone tend to do better athletically, but traditionally not in such a way that it's a problem. Some conditions like no ovaries, internal testes… as a result women with a certain high amount of testosterone, known as  hyperandrogenism,  are banned from competing. But critics say that this is violating the privacy of an athlete. The IAAF justified their policy by claiming, "The new regulations rest on the assumption that androgenic hormones (such as testosterone and dihydrotestosterone) are the primary components of biologic athletic advantage."
Karkazis and her team contend that the policy is a violation of an athlete's privacy and that despite the IAAF's assurances to the contrary such information could never be kept secret.
They argue that testing for testosterone levels alone is inadequate and completely simplistic — that the IAAF is testing to make sure a female athlete is not "too masculine." Rebecca Jordan-Young, a member of the panel and co-author of the report, has said, "Individuals have dramatically different responses to the same amounts of testosterone, and it is just one element in a complex neuroendrocrine feedback system." Moreover, it's not known what typical testosterone levels even are for elite female athletes.
The Stanford bioethicist also argues that athletic performance cannot be simply boiled down to testosterone levels, citing that performance is much more complicated than that. Moreover, they argue that other athletes have different genetic endowments, including several runners and cyclists who have rare mitochondrial variations that give them extraordinary aerobic capacity, or basketball players who have acromegaly, a hormonal condition that results in exceptionally large hands and feet. These athletes aren't banned from competition, they argue, and neither should women with elevated levels of testosterone.
Lastly, aside from the prejudicial and potentially sexist nature of the IAAF's policy, the Karkazis warns that the coerced surgery for these athletes is both extreme and potentially dangerous. "If the athlete does not pass, she is banned from competition until she lowers her testosterone levels," they write, noting that the treatment options would include pharmaceutical intervention or a gonadectomy - both of which carry serious potential side effects.
In terms of next steps, Karkazis simply recommends that all "gender policing" by international sporting authorities be rejected.
 American Journal Of Bioethics: Volume 12 Issue 7 - Jul 2012
Out Of Bounds? A Critique Of The New Policies On Hyperandrogenism In Elite Female Athletes Katrina Karkazis
 http://www.bioethics.net

Even though female students comprise 57% of college student populations, female athletes received only 43% of participation opportunities which is 56,110 fewer participation opportunities than their male counterparts.
In NCAA Division I-A, head coaches for women's teams receive an average salary of $850,400 while head coaches for men's teams average $1,783,100. This is a difference of $932,700.
For a WNBA player in the 2005 season, the minimum salary was $31,200, the maximum salary was $89,000, and the team salary cap was $673,000. For NBA players in the 2004-2005 season, the minimum salary was $385,277, the maximum salary was $15.355 million, and the team salary cap was $46 million.
For finishing in third place in the 2003 Women's World Cup, each U.S. women's national soccer team member was awarded $25,000. They would have received $58,000 if they had won the Cup. For reaching the quarterfinal of the World Cup in 2002, the U.S. men's national soccer team members received $200,000 each.
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/home/research/articles-and-reports/equity-issues/pay-inequity



Highest paid male athletes versus female Athletes:

1. Tiger Woods – $115 million                                    1. Maria Sharapova – $26 million
2. David Beckham – $50 million                                  2. Serena Williams – $14 million
3. Michael Jordan – $45 million                                   3. Venus Williams – $13 million

http://www.sportzbuzz.com/top-10-highest-paid-male-athletes-vs-female-athletes
Friday, April 10th, 2009
This inequality leaves female athletes behind in terms of possibilities for expanding the financing of their careers as well as on a level of appreciation and recognition. So while often going through extreme efforts and paying a high price for her success often on a physical and emotional level, the female athlete knows from the beginning that she will never be recognized fully and adequately by society and on a monetary level. This often has female athletes looking for other sources of income. One that comes almost automatically along with their success in sports is the possibility of marketing their sex appeal. As a now known figure, the media as well as the cooperate world are eager to write about her as a women and to add her to the high color pages in ads and articles. She can make money inducing anything from socks to drinks, as long as she is feminine enough to appear on a high gloss picture. Again, it is not her professionalism that is rewarded, but this time she is recognized for and reduced to her body. This is not only a degradation of herself and her achievement, but also sends a completely disfigured and wrong message to the masses of actual and potential female athletes who are looking for role models and trying to fulfill their dreams in sports or elsewhere. As a society we have to ask ourselves if we want our future generations of girls and women to follow the principle that a women’s greatest value lies in her body and not in herself, her ambitions, her strength, her dreams and her achievements.







Also making history in the women's shooting is the Malaysian Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi, who at 34 weeks (six weeks from her due date) is the most pregnant Olympian to take part in the Games and one of only four pregnant women ever to take part.
It is worth watching the marathon not just for the delighted Marial but also for Urige Buta, the Ethiopian-born Norwegian who trained running in sewage tunnels. It is worth watching the 100 metres hurdles for AmericanLolo Jones, who grew up hidden in the basement of a Salvation Army church in Des Moines with her father stealing the family's meals. Watch the women's boxing for Queen Underwood, the American fighter from Seattle who survived years of sexual abuse by her father and fought back from drug addiction to become a contender. And for our own Nicola Adams, who as a female boxer has had to punch through more glass ceilings than most of Team GB.
This is the first Games in which Adams and Underwood's sport has been recognised by the IOC. But then this is a breakthrough Olympics for women. London 2012 is also the first Games where all countries have entered male and female teams, progress when you consider that 26 national teams had no women competitors at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/27/london-2012-olympic-athletes-defy-odds
Ross Wynne-Jones, 27 July 2012-11-25


Kathrine Switzer will always be best known as the woman who challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event. Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the competition.
Three decades later, the incident continues to capture the public imagination and is, in part, the reason Switzer has dedicated her multi-faceted career to creating opportunities and equal sport status for women.
That career has included creating programs in 27 countries for over 1 million women that led to the inclusion of the women's marathon as an official event in the Olympic Games, changing forever the face of sports, health and opportunities for women around the world.
The "Boston Incident" also inspired Kathrine to become a good athlete: She has run 35 marathons, won the 1974 New York City Marathon, and ran her personal best of 2:51.33 by finishing 2nd in the 1975 Boston Marathon. At the time, this was the 6th best women's marathon time in the world, and 3rd in the U.S.A




What you can do
Attend women's sporting events
Support companies that advocate for women's athletics
Encourage television stations and newspapers to cover women's sports
Sign up to coach a girls' sports team, whether at the recreational or high school level
Encourage young women to participate in sports
Become an advocate: if you are or know a female athlete that is being discriminated against – advocate for her rights.
Men are bigger, faster, and stronger than women and in sports where that matters (football, basketball, baseball, hockey), they put on a better product in competition than women (in other words, more entertaining). But in sports where the differences in ability between men and women is subtle (tennis, golf, auto racing, snowboarding) the competition and entertainment value is more leveled. Women COULD build more muscle and devote more time to sports, but they would sacrifice their femininity