There are many ways in which women are discriminated against in sport. One of these is the way in which women’s teams are trivialised. This is most apparent in the way women’s teams are named, for example if a college football team was to be called the ‘Blue Hawks’, the female side would have a much less powerful name like the ‘Blue Tits’. This is because societies attitudes to women are that they are supposed to be ‘feminine’. This idea is that they do not play hard and physical games and therefore the names of the teams they play for should be less threatening as well, so instead of having a powerful predator like a hawk as there mascot they are thought as of cute gentle blue tits instead.
On a professional level one of the biggest examples of this is the difference in media coverage of women’s sport is compared to men’s. There are many parts to this subject of media coverage of women’s sport and the first and most obvious of these is the fact that women in sport get hardly any media coverage. This is true of newspapers reporting on, and TV showing, even major women’s sporting events. When women’s sport is televised or reported it is generally with men’s tournaments as well for example Wimbledon
All of the above points are how and reasons why women are discriminated against in sport and this is why less women play sport. There are many ways in which women’s participation sport can be improved. The first step towards this is to get local councils and sports governing bodies to target women’s sport and make an effort to improve funding and coaching of new and ongoing women’s sports sides. This would be a good basis to start as with more local sides starting more leagues can be made. With more local–national leagues there would be a greater demand for the sport to turn professional. If a professional league was started it would have a lot of support from the local sides and this would force the media to take more notice of it and therefore the sport would grow even more. This can also be done the other way around; if the media advertised women’s sports more there would be more women wanting to play and consequently a greater demand for local clubs.
Fewer women play sport when they leave school. This is because of many factors, first of which is the reality that there are a lot less opportunities for women in the way that once they leave school they do not know where the local hockey or netball club is because there are a lot fewer of them so instead they stop playing. Another reason women stop playing when they leave school is because there
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