Written By Emma Paidra
“She can’t dunk, and there aren’t as many threes” “Sarah Fuller doesn’t belong on a men’s field” “It’s just not the same sport when it’s girls playing”
Time and time again, I hear comments like these about female professional athletes. In some ways, I’ve got to hand it to the people saying this kind of stuff — their creativity when it comes to making excuses not to support women in sports is impressive. But it’s getting old. Granted, some pretty big strides for female athletes took within the last year. From Naomi Osaka coming home victorious at the 2020 U.S. Open, to Kim Ng being hired as the Miami Marlin’s GM, to Sports Illustrated’s selection of Breanna Stewart as a SportsPerson of the Year, battles have been won. While these accomplishments are major, they’re also not enough. After all, in a season where NBA viewership was down and the WNBA’s was on the rise, the 2020 WNBA championships received a mere 5.3% of the NBA championship’s views. Not to mention the highest paid woman in the NWHL earns $25,000 a year. And no, I didn’t misplace the comma or forget a zero.
Though there is still so much room for growth in the female sports industry, plenty of folks would tell me things are fine the way they are. In fact, many have told me exactly this. But I don’t buy it. When it comes to the age-old argument that there’s no audience for women in sports, I’ve got to laugh. Sure, the sports industry has a long history of pushing women to the sidelines: with 93% of chair and president roles and 81% of chief executive positions occupied by men and women’s athletics receiving only 4% of sports media coverage, a female audience can seem pointless. I can assure you, however, that it is not; amidst this male-dominated sports environment, women still want in. A 2020 study showed that 47% of dedicated sports fans are women. If the same inclusivity that has drawn men to sports is applied to women — meaning women’s sports are widely televised, debated upon, and celebrated in the same way that men’s athletics are — support for women in sports will only grow. If 47% of women will devotedly cheer on their favourite male teams and players, the potential for an audience of women rooting for female athletes is staggering. Of course, I would love for men to watch and support women’s sports, too. But for the sake of argument, it’s pretty darn clear there’s a guaranteed audience for women’s sports…women. If male sports fans choose not to tune in, it really is their loss.
It’s also worth considering the message being sent to young female athletes when they see how female pros are perceived and treated. Growing up as a girl who loved and played sports but only saw male athletes participating in stable leagues made one thing clear: there is a cut-off point in the career of female athletes…and it comes early. Young and talented women in sports must choose between relegating their athleticism to a hobby, or accepting the difficult reality of female pros. Over time, this fact has grown to really bug me…not only because it places a severe limitation on the potential of female athletes, but because of its ideological underpinnings. The notion that the athletic performance of women should not be celebrated on the same level as that of men hinges upon the idea that the female body just isn’t as capable. So, let’s think about that one for a moment.
Yes, okay, it is true that in comparing men and women, men have 30–40% more muscle mass, can jump 25% higher, accelerate 20% faster and throw 25% higher. In addition, men have a greater cardiac and respiratory output than women. I am not denying any facts here, but I am denouncing the ways in which they are being used. Considering it is an objective fact that, in general, men are inclined to possess a variety of traits that provide an athletic advantage, why do we set the same standard for male and female athletes, only to put women down when they don’t reach our expectations designed for the former? In expecting the same of men and women in sports, we give ourselves tunnel vision in seeing only the ways in which women do not perform exactly like men, and ignoring the feats of female athletes. Take Leilani Mitchell as an example. Coming in at five feet and five inches, Mitchell is a mere two inches above the Canadian female average height and two inches under the Latvian average. Currently a guard for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, Mitchell’s career average of three-point shots is an impressive 38.8% — a very similar average to that of the Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray, clocking in at 35.8%. Murray, however, is six foot four. Though by no means a giant, Murray is certainly closer to the average height of his NBA comrades than Mitchell is of hers. Yet when it comes to accomplishments of athletes like Mitchell, sports fans attuned to male pros are often armed with a host of excuses for why women’s athletic accomplishment just don’t count. This dismissive attitude isn’t applied only to women’s basketball, but all female sports like a corrosive disease eating away at female athletic achievements before they’re even made.
With each noteworthy athletic performance made by female pros that goes ignored, dismissed, or downtrodden, women everywhere are fed the misleading notion that our abilities, devotion to sport and maximum efforts are unremarkable. That message is destructive…but it’s also wrong. Female athletes are doing the exact same thing as male ones: operating at the pinnacle of their respective sex’s physiological ability and athletic intellectit’s time for them to start getting treated like it.
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