The issue of gender inequality has always been a serious concern raising a far-reaching dispute throughout the history of humankind. This point of legal inequality has been examined in different fields of human activity, employment and politics being the most emphatic ones (Anon, 2016). Besides that, the issue of gender inequality has developed to encompass a far wider range of human realms, including sports. Therefore, the major subject matter for this essay is gender inequality, specifically the phenomenon of women’s derogation (Anon, 2016).
Since the world of sport experienced recession in its general evolution, women became the most “vulnerable” group, deprived of the fundamental right – right to play. Such unsubstantial discrimination is largely based upon the widely held prejudice of the incapability of women to compete in sports or because of broadly spread persuasion of the natural inappropriateness of women to do sports. To say it in general, the reasons are not that different from those lying at the foundation of gender discrimination in society or politics. Even a saying of the founder of the first Olympic Games Baron Pierre de Coubertin set out the idea of the incongruence of the woman’s organism with the toughness and tension of the world of sport. The saying itself goes: “No matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks” (Collins, 2013).
There is a wide spread opinion that more funding in women’s sport involvement programs would inevitably lead to decrease in interest to traditional kinds of sport like football or basketball. Moreover, it has become a widespread practice for women doing sports professionally to file lawsuits in order to protect their rights against unjust treatment based on their gender (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016). However, the whole affair is overwhelmed with myths and subjective preoccupations. For example, the allegation that more women athletes would result in leaving men no chance to thrive in the chosen area is definitely not reasonable. The fact that there are more scholarships for male sportsmen than for women, and the cost, which specialized institutions spend on women rarely, exceeds 24 percent.
Firstly, I would like to make a general overview of women’s position in different types of sports. Tennis goes the first in the row, as being the most loyal and unprejudiced type of sport, in which the general portion of women’s participation, is definitely the highest. However, it has not been always like that. In fact, the amount of men taking part in tennis competitions used to be tangibly exceeding as compared to women’s participation (PCI (Project Concern International), 2016). Moreover, the discrimination addressed the financial derogation of women, which used to be paid much lesser as compared to men. Only in 2007, the Wimbledon match has to settle this matter by providing the equal amounts of payments for both: singles champions were supposed to get 1.88 million dollars and the runner up was supposed to receive 940,000 million dollars. (Bbc.co.uk, 2016). Nevertheless, the dispute is now dwelling upon the prominence of the women's matches and whether they should get to play on the big courts, in front of the biggest crowds, as much as the men do.
The next example will be football. The way gender inequality expresses itself in football is to some extend familiar to the sphere of tennis. It is primarily concerned with the economic factor: Champions of the Woman’s World Cup are significantly lesser than the one the champions of World Cup. Particularly, this can be observed on the following data: having won World Cup, Germany's team got around 23 million, whereas the USA team that won the Women's World Cup received 1.3 million (Women In Sport, 2016). The gap is actually convincing, saying nothing of the obviously poorer popularity of women’s football matches as compared to men’s ones, which calls into question the financial profitability of associating women with this game.
Notwithstanding the facts set forth above, there are some positive manifestations of women’s participation in sports. In particular, as far as England is concerned, there is a notable increase in the number of women participating in sports. This emphatic upsurge of women participation and further success in sports (which unconditionally contributes to the general successful performance of the whole sport team in a competition) is indefensibly caused by ever wider financing of the promotion of primarily women’s kinds of sports (such as rugby, cricket and football teams). In fact, business and private sector has finally realized the profitability and sustainability of women’s kinds of sports, which proved to be “an uplifting commodity in which to invest” (Sportengland.org, 2016).
Moreover, the number of those women is rising considerably faster than the number of men. Not to be unsubstantiated, I would render some statistics: the overall number of people taking part in sports rose to 245,000 in the year to September, with women taking part regularly up by 150,000 (BBC Sport, 2016). The top kind of sport women actively participate in is swimming. Other fields of sports remarked for active participation of women are athletics (a rise of 98,700 to 2.3 million) and tennis (22,800 more comparing to the previous statistics) (Mott, 2015). Investing in woman’s sport also proved to be far more profitable and cheaper at the same time (Eeoc.gov, 2016). Besides the upsurge in interest for women’s sports in its financial alternative, the overall attitude towards women as an adequate and strong category of participants ready to represent a spirit of competition has evidently raised among masses. In its tweeter to the Lionesses (a woman football team) who won their way through to World Cup semi-final David Beckham said: “Girls what a performance. We are so proud of what you have achieved and the passion you have shown ” (Roo did it!, 2015).
Notwithstanding the fact of relative alleviation of women’s discrimination in sports and designation of a vast range of ways for women to realize their physical capabilities and sports, there is still ingrained and widely held prejudice upon the role women play in the world of sport. Actually, the amount of tries women do to succeed in sports happen to be exposed to a great portion of judgment held by people strongly prejudiced in the physical incapability of women to compete in sports. Such widely held tendency to judge has eventually become a dispiriting factor for women hampering them from even trying to make any efforts in sports. Therefore, the actions for securing the development of women’s participation in sport should not also largely deal with the physiological support and encouragement of women (Topics.hrhero.com, 2016). One of the examples of implementing this contribution is initiating “This Girl Can” which is a nationwide campaign designed to motivate women to compete, encourage them for training and developing their sport skills and implementing their physical potential (Sportengland.org, 2016).
“This Girl Can” being non-governmental social organization is closely linked to the private sector to do the financial maintenance of the organization. Thus, the organization owns a considerable amount of financial recourses deriving from the persons and institution who are personally engaged in the activities of the organization. That is why the contribution paid by the sponsors is not only material, but there is also a tangible personal participation in the formation of the organization’s inner workings. In my consideration, this is a straightforward token of the drastic upsurge in interest for the women sports industry, which means this is rather a claiming issue. However, the issue is actually ignored by the majority of the governments, who refer to the poor professional background of sportswomen to justify the limitedness of the infrastructure in women sports.
Personally, I suppose that this is the focal point to be considered by all the organizations and institutions aimed to further the general respect for women in sports. They should find the group of engaged sponsors, though not even sponsors, but surround themselves with the people personally concerned with the problem. Whereas England serves as a positive example of a state where investors and the government are not afraid of making any financial contributions to the sphere of woman sports. They largely put many efforts to the development of female kinds of sports, it does not take us geographically far away from England to see a radically different situation (Washington Post, 2016).
I am going to proceed my further examination with the example of female discrimination in sports going on in Scotland. The leading woman boxer referred to the Equality and Human Rights Commission with a serious complaint about the restriction of opportunities for women to develop their physical potential which is the evidence of pure discrimination (VICE Sports, 2015). The Equality and Human Rights Commission in its turn addressed the challenge to the Boxing Scotland with an insistent urge to set out the explanation and justification for such policy (Bodenner, 2015). While the Boxing Scotland remains silent, the outrage concerned with the limitation of sport opportunities for woman has visibly obtained a collective nature: similar challenges have been addressed to the Commission by a group of boxing sportswomen who particularly linked their outrage with the lack of opportunities to develop their sports careers. There was actually one point of justification expressed by the Boxing Scotland, which claimed that no “Scottish female boxers good enough to compete at the Games” (BBC Sport, 2014).
Since socially held prejudice against women’s active participation in sports has been a common cause of that derogatory actions from the governments and women’s inner alienation from the world of sports, there exists an objective and claiming necessity to eliminate this prejudicial attitude towards women, not only as far as the sphere of sports is concerned. The discrimination of women goes on in a wide variety of field: academic, social, civil, political and so on. Therefore, these are the social barriers, which prohibit many skilled and educated women from affirming their individuality and realizing their professional ambitions. Therefore, my point is to direct the all-encompassing education of people initiating in their minds the process to think objectively and impartially. The initiation of an educational program oriented in this way is supposed to provide both: the facilitation of tension and dispute over woman rights in society and the promotion of woman sport to the reputable level.
Taking into account how different the attitude of the government towards women sports is, I suppose it prudent that the issue should be transferred to the international level for the international community being capable of dealing with the problem and settling it collectively.
In my own consideration, this issue would make more progress if raised at the international level, supposedly addressed to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This organization should commit to combat the restriction of woman opportunities in sports by initiating conferences, organizing some specialized institution engaged in protection of women’s rights in sports. Moreover, probably it would be prudent to initiate compiling some international agreement or some kind of declaration on this score, so that the rights of sportswomen could be legally protected. I think it would actually make sense, because now those women, who actually try to fight for their rights to participate in sport and take appropriate actions in this way, can actually relate exclusively to the principle of “non-distinction” based on sex. However, as we can see illustrated upon the examples rendered above, it proves rather a poor instrument of legal protection.
It is also important to keep in mind that investing in the development of the infrastructure of women’s sports is not just a shallow squander of finances, but a serious contribution to the common success of national sport community. Despite the obvious ignorance paid to women kinds of sport, those kinds of sports are gaining a certain portion of authority among other kinds of sports. For instance, some of female kinds of sports at present complete the program of the Winter Olympic Games. That is why making wider contribution, associating of more people and communities to the organization of the women sports industry may prove broadly contributory to the future success of a country in these kinds of sports. That is how I am trying to emphasize the significance of paying allowance, both financial and attitudinal, for women’s participation in the sphere of sport and putting it probably not as a prevailing way of sports development but, at least, equate its position with the other more ordinary types of sports.
References
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