Gender Inequalities Growing Up

"You throw like a girl” “Girls can’t play football!” These are two of the most common phrases heard during your childhood in relation to sports. There are many assumptions that if you can’t throw a baseball correctly then you are throwing in a feminine way that is less superior then its masculine counterpart. If a girl wants to play football, she is being seen as masculine only because the sport of football is generally coined as being only for boys and is too rough for girls. These are all just assumptions made by our culture and there is no historical evidence that hold truth to them. Growing up, young children are influenced by many things in their everyday lives and one of the most growing influences in a child’s life today is athletes. Boys and girls idolize many professional athletes and dream of being in their shoes one day. But there are many obstacles that stand in their way, namely the gender inequalities that are portrayed when they are participating in the sports they enjoy.

Many times when we think of women in sport we tend to look at the current participation of those women in college and professional sports. What we need to consider is the coming of women participating in sports before they are seen in the professional realm. Consider this: Did girls get the same opportunities to participate in sports when they were children as did boys? They answer to that question is clear, No. When we were younger, most of us participated in youth soccer leagues before we were ten years old. And the majority of us can attest to the fact that we were on co-ed teams and were always playing behind the boys. If you were a girl at this time period and wanted to play a sport such as football or wrestling, you were told that you couldn’t because those are “boys” sports. But what is it that makes it a “boys” sport? The physicality of such sports is the main reason why these sports are termed “boys” sports and it is thought that only masculine boys should play these masculine sports and it is not socially acceptable for a feminine girl to participate in them. Because these sports are seen as masculine and too rough, girls are refrained from the opportunity to participate in them. Ashley Huggins and Shirley Randell discuss in a scholarly article that they produced that ever since they can remember, boys were encouraged to be outdoors and participate in sporting practices while girls were encouraged to participate in indoor activities such as reading and home duties. (The Contribution of Sports to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, page 2) But as the years have progressed we are seeing that more and more girls wanting to participate in these typical “boy” sports and they are given that opportunity. If you really consider the popular sports in today’s society: football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, soccer, track and field, a good majority of them are male centered in the media and the women’s counterpart of the sports are set on the back burner. For instance, softball and women’s basketball are less important in many people’s eyes as are men’s basketball and baseball. But, as young children, both boys and girls are eager to participate in as many sports as they can. At a young age, girls have the opportunity to play all of these sports even if they are “boys” sports, but as they get older and enter into grade school, those opportunities diminish and they are only allowed to play certain sports that are viewed to be feminine.

What we see is that as young children, both boys and girls are given many opportunities to participate in a wider range of sports than they will be allowed to play in their future. In today’s society, girls are given more opportunities to participate in even the masculine sports but are cut off from doing so as they get older. In the same sense, boys are allowed to participate in girls’ sports such as dance and gymnastics, although it is more common for girls to play boys sports than boys play girls sports.  Many camps and clubs promote the participation of both boys and girls but somewhat acts as a tease to these children because they may potentially fall in love with the sport but will then be forced to stop playing it because social norms prohibit them from continuing. In all actuality, physicality has nothing to do with who could play certain sports, it all has to do with social acceptability.

It may seem that at a young age, girls and boys are given many of the same opportunities in sport. For example, girls are allowed to wrestle and participate in football camps. But, as they get older it becomes unacceptable for them to continue in those “masculine” sports. It may seem unfair that they are allowed to participate in whatever they would like at a young age, but then be forced to stop their participation once they reach a certain age level. It is when they reach that grade school level where we start to see gender inequalities and discrimination. And those inequalities will only get worse as they get older. So, I encourage all young girls to participate in whatever they find appealing even if it is a “boys” sport because sooner or later they will not have those opportunities!

Note: the scholarly article came from: http://www.ifuw.org/rwanda/media/women_sports.pdf, by Allison Huggins and Shirley Randell.