Gender Discrimination

Gender discrimination has been a controversial topic in sports dating back 30 years. The issue continues to be a topic in sports that gains a lot of attention. Most of the gender issue deals with women's sports and their respective athletes.

Surrounding the issue are things such as the lack of women's sports in the media. Their sports are rarely covered and as a result women have to deal with the underdevelopment of their sports. For example in the recent WNBA draft, the only part that was shown on Sports Center was UCONN forward Maya Moore being drafted first. Other than that, the rest was left unknown.

When women are in the media, they are usually being shown as objects of sexual desire. The United States women's Olympic swimming team did a photo shoot for FHM magazine back in 2004. Instead of them posing in their competitive bathing suits, they all posed in skimpy white bikinis. In our society today, sex sells. Unfortunately for women athletes to gain a fair amount of attention, they have to either wear less, be sexy or both.

Female athletes are also stereotyped. Take for example back in 2007 when Don Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball teams as 'nappy-headed hos.' Not only was he stereotyping them based on their ethnicity, but their gender as well. During the same broadcast he also referred to them as 'rough' and said it looked like the Toronto Raptors were playing. Unfortunately for women again, playing a sport often means they are manly and they will usually be called a 'lesbian' for partaking in sports.

I do not see any of this issues going away anytime soon. Women athletes out there will have to continue to ignore and play the games they love.