Gender equality in Tennis
Like many sports, tennis is blatantly sexist. Achieving success in the sport rests on masculine characteristics such as stamina, speed, power and strength. Because of the fact that women are unable to compete with men based on these terms, the sport remains to favor men and segregate women. The gender segregation in tennis forces the need to have separate competitions for each gender, separate sets of rules and tactics for each gender, and separate world ranking for each gender. This has also created pay variations. Men side of the sport receives a much high payments than the female side. This paper discusses the issue of gender equality in tennis while making comparison of tennis industry in Australia and other countries.
Gender equality and participation
The first issue is the disparity in participation. Since the mid 20th century, there has been considerable discrimination between sports for woman and men in Australia. This disparity did not only affect Australia but also other countries in the world. According to the Roy Morgan single source data, there is a difference in tennis participation in Australia. The research study that was conducted between October 2010 and September 2011 found that more men participate in tennis than women. The study interviewed a total of 18,581 participants above the age of 14. Out of the people interviewed, the men who regularly participate in tennis are 59% while 41 percent were women above the age of 14. However, the study also found that women enjoy watching tennis compared to men. Most women watch the Australian open on TV more than men do.
The modern women’s movement achieved a historic victory of gender equity on June 23, 1972, when Title IX was enacted as part of the Educational Amendments. Within the established framework of human rights and sport for development and peace, a number of United Nations intergovernmental and treaty body processes, as well as other international and regional processes, have specifically addressed some of the critical gender equality issues in sports. Global and regional policy frameworks on women, gender equality and sport have been developed. Title IX of the United States educational amendments prohibited sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funds and opened the doors for drastically increased support for and participation in girls and women’s sports in high schools and colleges in the United States. Title IX requires women be provided an equitable opportunity to participate in sport; female athletes receive athletic scholarships proportional to participation; and that female athletes receive equal treatment of equipment and supplies, scheduling of games and practice times, coaching, practice and competitive facilities, access to tutoring, publicity and promotions, and recruitment of student athletes.
Gender equality in payment and reward
There are also a lot of concerns regarding disparity in rewards. Men have been receiving huge payments in all tennis championships. Two reasons have been accounted for the disparities. The first one is that there are variations in terms of rules for the women game and the male game. The women finals, for instance, only goes up to a maximum of three sets, while the men finals can go up to a maximum of five sets. Basically, the women’s final is shorter than the men’s finals. The second reason is that women’s final is not that entertaining as the men’s. This has raised additional concerns of media coverage and sponsorship issues. The issue is that both the men winners and women winners achieve the same the title when they win a grand slam such as the French open, but the pay is not the same. However, it was only until 2007 that the Australian Open became the first Open tennis championship that gave equal reward to both the men and women singles title. This was however expected to set the pace for the other grand slams and open tennis championship to follow suit.
In the US, the story was the same as there was a clear disparity between the rewards that men received with that of the women. The women tennis association made complaints about the issue terming it as unfair. Since then the US open decided to have equal pay to both the men and women singles champions. In order to correct these disparities, women have made it clear that the there should be no variation of terms. Their sets should be made equal to the men’s sets so that there. This therefore has become the main concern when it comes to disparities in payment. Women still play three sets compared to the five sets played by men. The amount of work women players do cannot be compared to that of men. Critiques argue that the top female tennis players cannot compete in the top 500 men league. In 1998, a Karsten Baasch, a German male tennis player ranked 203 then, was able to defeat both the Williams sisters in just one afternoon. This implies that top women players get the same pay as top male players but are nowhere close to match some of the men ranked way much lower.
The other issues that critics of gender equality bring to the table deals with the amount of revenue generated by both men and women professional tennis players. Men generally bring more revenue for the grand slams compared to men. The men events have huge viewership among sports and tennis lovers compared to the women events. Many sports analysts including the female analysts agree to the fact that men events attract more attention and viewership than the women events. Thus, the men events generate more money for the grand slams than the women events. But the question still remains, why do men events attract more attention than the women events? In order to create the much needed gender equality, there is need to for this question to be answered comprehensively. The answer may not lie on the fact that men have greater stamina, strength, and speed than women.
Gender equality and media coverage
This is where media coverage and branding of women events come in. Most countries give the men events greater media coverage than the women. Even in the grand slam coverage, there are slight differences or inequalities with regards to gender. The bias is specifically on the country of origin. A country such as Australia may not experience this biasness because there is equal representation of both men and women in the top seeded players. In fact, in Australia, more women enjoy the sport both as fans and players compared to men. Disparities in coverage may therefore not exist. However, a country such as Spain, biasness in media coverage may exist as a result of the fact that men dominate tennis in the country compared to women. The top seed in the world until last year was a Spaniard.
Biasness of media coverage in Australia also exist but on a small scale. A perfect example of biasness in media coverage with regards to gender is the Foxtel networks in Australia. Despite Australia producing some of the top seeded female players, a lot of attention by Fox Sports is focused on men tennis. In 2010 for instance, within a period of one from July 22nd to August 20th, the media aired a series of live tennis events and played replays 53 times. Out of all this tennis airtime, 12% was dedicated to female tennis events while the rest dedicated to male tennis events.
The problem of bias media coverage seems to be even worse in Britain. Sky Sports, one of the leading sporting news channels in the country focus too much attention on the ATP events compared to WTA events. British fans for WTA events have to depend on an international sporting channel, Eurosport, to enjoy their favorite women tennis events. The US seems to have the best fair coverage of tennis news events for both ATP and WTA. The tour over the US open series aired almost equally. Even though the skewers for sports coverage by ESPN generally favor men, in the tennis channel, the favor is more on the women side. This is a way in which ESPN uses to balance disparities in media coverage with regards to gender. Despite this development, a challenge still remains since ESPN is the leading sports channel and it generally favors men.
Media coverage of tennis in Australia seems to show disparities with regards to gender. With the success that women show in the sport of tennis, the media balances its gender coverage on the sport. Women success in other sports too has earned the much needed coverage in Australia . The problem with media coverage only gets real when women are not given enough coverage in the news. One could turn on to the sports section of newspapers and notice little reporting on the activities of women in sports. The same thing applies in television sports reporting. This difference was initially a result of the perception that women activities in sports are not that entertaining as the men activities.
In the global spectrum, media coverage of sports continues to show evidence of disparities. Female athletes are mentioned in fewer articles with fewer photographs. This means that even though women can get a mention, no photograph is used in the article. However, these figures mainly occur in certain countries and with specific competitions.
Gender equality and sponsorship
Women’s Tennis Association is the global body that covers women’s professional tennis playing. This body represent over 2500 players from 52 different countries. All these players compete for prize money of $96 million annually spread across 52 WTA events and four major grand slams. In 2011 alone more than 5 million people attended the female tennis competitions including the grand slam. This figure does not include the many millions who enjoy watching the events on television.
Sponsorship is also a response that can be used to answer the question of, why do men events attract more attention than the women events. Tennis is more of a woman’s game more than any other sport in the world. There are women role models who have gained their status thanks to the sport. Most companies seek to gain revenues by promoting or marketing the images of male players like Roger Federer, but do not want to give the same opportunities to women players . Although there are women players who receive the same sponsorship deals as the top male players, disparities still remain. Nike for instance, has marketed Maria Sharapova’s image and Time magazine has also listed Serena Williams as one of the top 100 most influential people . If women are given the same opportunities as men, revenue generation for the grand slams would be equal . The media needs to understand that women also have an audience . Sponsors need to understand that women can be marketed and draw huge attraction among tennis lovers. WTP needs to generate more money to pay the female players. As it currently stands, the men players still earn a lot more compared to the female player because ATP has more money than WTA. Gender equality does not only focus on payment but also respect, magazine attention, newspaper attention, and television coverage.
Tennis, just as many sports, can be used as a means of women empowerment. When women are encouraged to participate in tennis, as professional players, there are a lot of benefits that they receive. Tennis is the most common sporting among women in Australia. More women are involved in the sport in one way or another than the men. Some enjoying watching on the sidelines, others take part in the sport, while others actually play tennis professionally. A knowledge gap exists on the behavior of men and women when in leadership positions. Researchers who agree on gender as a force that defines the leadership provided by women or men in their effectiveness look at it from the perspective of the social roles women and men play. Roles conferred on women in the social context based on the agentic characteristics of the gender divide.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed the issue of gender equality in tennis while making comparison of tennis industry in Australia and other countries. Like many sports tennis is blatantly sexist. Achieving success in the sport rests on masculine characteristics such as stamina, speed, power and strength. Because of the fact that women are unable to compete with men based on these terms, the sport remains to favor men and segregate women. The gender segregation in tennis forces the need to have separate competitions for each gender, separate sets of rules and tactics for each gender, and separate world ranking for each gender. This has also created pay variations. Men side of the sport receives a much high payments than the female side. Two reasons have been accounted for the disparities. The first one is that there are variations in terms of rules for the women game and the male game. The second reason is that women’s final is not that entertaining as the men’s. This has raised additional concerns of media coverage and sponsorship issues. In the global spectrum, media coverage of sports continues to show evidence of disparities. Female athletes are mentioned in fewer articles with fewer photographs. Gender equality does not only focus on payment but also magazine attention, newspaper attention, and television coverage.
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