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Vasti Fontes
Professor Brown
English 101
22 April 2015
Females in Sports
Female sports has impacted society in a tremendous way that has changed many viewpoints.
“Sports participation has given millions of women new self-confidence and has taken them to where they never were before- onto what used to be male turf” (Nelson 4). Women are now participating in sports that they love and enjoy, but many years ago, women were not allowed to play sports. On the other hand, some men, and other people who may agree, often believe in “female inferiority” and that “men are better athletes than women” (Nelson 45). This problem is not only about female sports but females in general. People need to stop discriminating against women in sports just because of gender, instead, people should help support female sports by writing more books, documentary’s, and movies about female sports so others can see the struggles women go though and challenges they have gone through. Changing the way some speak can even be a great help change the negative into positive. People enjoy male sports more than women sports because of a lack of interest among sponsors and the public. If there were more sponsorship and media coverage, then women’s sport would be more popular.
Sara Maratta’s essay called, “Move Over Boys, Make Room in the Crease,” has another view of women in sports. Maratta suggests that fandom and sports should be for everyone and not just men, no matter if a person is a fan or if he or she is an athlete. Felisa Roger’s essay called, “How I Learned to
Love Football,” also gave a view of women in sports with a personal example of her life dealing with her husband and sports (Rogers 529). Rogers believes watching sports is a time to have fun and spend time with loved ones. She does not care what people say just because she is a woman who grew into liking

Fontes 2 sports. No one was born a fan or an athlete, but we are all human beings with equal rights and we all have the same amount of freedom. Some may say that this issue is not important enough to spend money on, but we don’t need money for this to change. Many people would be happy and willing to help if they love sports and if they want to change discrimination against women. Even female athletes can help because it is supporting them. People can do fundraisers and car washes if money is such a great necessity. It can even become volunteer work. Money is not a big issue to worry about.
In the 1800s, women began to play sports. The first popular sports women played were boating, archery, baseball, tennis, and swimming. As time went by, there were more and more women participating in different kinds of sports, but it was not easy for women to participate in sports. For example, a book called, “A Photohistory of American Women in Sports” by Sue
Macy, has an over exaggerated picture of a woman in the sport of archery shooting a bow into a man’s chest. It was “published in 1880, just one year after the first National Archery
Championship for women” (Macy 24). This painting was called “Bending Her Beau”. The woman in the picture is supposed to shoot the arrow closest to the middle of the target, but instead the picture shows the women shooting a man standing next to the target by accident in the chest. What I understand from this picture is that back in 1880, people made fun of women in sports. This picture is basically saying that women are not good at sports just because of their gender.
Women were allowed to play sports inside school, but they were not allowed to play outside of school. As a result, in the 1900’s “women began to fight for the right to compete in sports outside of school” (Macy 130). On April 19, 1967 a twenty year old woman named
Kathrine Switzer went into a men-only Boston Marathon event without permission from the racing organizers. She got into the marathon with a little help from her male teammates from

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Syracuse University. She asked them to pick up a number at the sign in table so that the directors of the Boston Marathon wouldn’t see that she was a woman trying to participate in this all male sport. Once she got the number from her male friends, she covered her long hair by pushing back the hood on her sweater. Afterwards she was ready to run in the marathon. No one saw that she was a woman until her hood came off during the Boston Marathon. Consequently, the race organizers saw that she was a female, so “they tried to tear the cardboard number from her chest and force her off the course” (Macy 132). The race organizers literally ran in the marathon, chasing after her, while trying to tear her number off. Will Cloney was one of the men trying to stop Kathrine from finishing the marathon. Tom Miller, on the other hand, was one of the men running next to Kathrine trying to help her continue running in the marathon. He defended her by pushing Will Cloney away from her. Many can see in the photographs provided, while all of these things are happening, there are also nice men trying to help get these angry racing organizers (other men) off Katherine. Therefore not all men were against women in sports.
Kathrine made it through the Boston Marathon in four hours and twenty minutes. She wanted to change the rules because she felt like it was unfair to females. She said it made her feel strong by doing so. Finally in the year of 1972, women were invited to enter the Boston Marathon because of a protest with the photos of the situation that happened in the all men Boston Marathon.
Having protests for female sports has obviously made that great change. If we do the same thing with protesting today for the little feminism left, we can continue to make change in female sports. If it happened in the 1900’s it can also happen in the 2000’s. With effort and hard work put into protesting, maybe rules can change, and women can begin to play together in male sports. This is a possibility that can happen if female athletes (and fans) want it to happen. If

Fontes 4 people were to protest long enough, then some kind of change or movement can happen. There will be more support for female sports.
Many people had many feelings about this change in sports. Some were negative and some were positive. Usually females back in the 1900’s were treated unfairly by many people.
Sometimes things would come out good but most of the times it came out a little depressing. For instance, “in July 1971, when Little League Manager Donald Scuto allowed 12-year-old Sharon
Poole to play for the Haverhill (Massachusetts) Indians, he was fired and she was kicked off the team” (Macy 132). It was a boys’ organization whose purpose was to instill manhood though baseball. So one can see, again, that not everyone was against females in sports, only some.
Donald Scuto obviously did not mind a small female playing in the baseball games, but his boss that fired him had a major problem with it. One can tell that he disagreed entirely because of his actions when he fired Little League Manager Donald Scuto. Sometimes it’s positive and sometimes it’s not.
In a female point of view, according to Maratta, “men still dominate” in sports (Maratta
544). She approaches the role of women in sports in several different angles and talks about society and how people look at women in sports. She speaks in a general way that relates to many other women, thus, this made her essay very important to female fans and athletes in sports. Females do not like sports because they are forced, but they like them because they are interested just like men are. Many people have the same interests but it does not mean they need to be the same gender. After all, towards the beginning of Maratta’s essay, she gives a short explanation of how she personally became a fan of hockey. When she was 14 she walked in on her dad watching hockey and she began to have a great interest in that sport. She continued to watch hockey and she fell in love with it. She did not like the sport because of older brothers or

Fontes 5 her dad convincing her to watch it. She liked it because of her own interest. She went to many games from that point on and began to love hockey more and more, but as time went by, she began to see the inequality in sports. She strongly insists that there should not be inequality in any sport.
The newspapers’ Treatment from 1999, spoke about the Women’s World Cup and a lot of it had gendered comments. Gendered comments means “reflecting the experience, prejudices, or orientations of one sex more than the other < gendered language>; also : reflecting or involving gender differences or stereotypical gender roles” (Merriam). The newspapers and media spoke of the same thing. “The media spent more time discussing the event in terms of feminist progress than focusing on the game in and of itself” (Maratta 541). Sports are supposed to be for fun and it is something that family and friends can bond with and relate to. If people simply fixed the way they speak about female sports or females in general, maybe there wouldn’t be so much feminism and mean gendered comments. For example when I was a young girl I use to play a lot of sports because I thought it was fun. I remember hearing boys in my fifth grade class saying, “You play like a little girl!” I was confused at first, but later I began to understand what they truly meant. Sometimes I would say it too. It is wrong to put women down in a negative way like that. Those little boys didn’t just start saying those words out of nowhere, they had to learn it from somewhere. It was either from TV shows, media, or even their parents who watch sports. Changing the way we speak about women will also help change the discrimination in female sports. People should not be picking on women in sports.
Women have to go in their games not only worrying about the game itself, but also the pressure of having characteristics of a man. They did this because the people watching them play the sports were looking at the way they dressed or changed instead of paying attention to the

Fontes 6 game itself. It made the women feel like they had to do more than just follow the rules of the game. So women try their best at everything they can do for the sports and for the media. This is the reason women are treated differently in sports. A lot of the time, people do not expect certain looks on men when they play their sports, but people expect it from women. Maratta also gave examples of her own experiences being a fan at hockey games.
“Although I was well combed with cordiality into the NFL fan clique of the Columbus
Blue Jackets hockey franchise, those outside this group did not and have not accepted me as a true enthusiast who has a real comprehension and love for what goes on in the crease. Why? Because I am a woman” (Maratta 538).
Maratta believes it is unfair that women are being mistreated as a player and a fan in all sports.
She claims that a fan is a fan no matter what the gender may be. As we can see, women athletes and fans have been and still are being mistreated (judged) in sports.
The media has been another great problem for women in sports because of all the negative things they have put out on the internet, newspapers, and TV for many people to see.
“There are also some who believe that women cannot offer valuable insights and opinions when it comes to reporting sports” (Maratta 541). In other words, other than sports, people are saying women cannot give useful, important information. People enjoy male sports more than female sports because of a lack of interest among sponsors and the public. If there were more sponsorship and media coverage, then women’s sport would be more popular. Media outlets and sponsors retort that if women’s sport attracted more interest in the first place then they would invest more time and money in it. “Only five percent of sports media coverage features women.
For every fifty-three articles written about sporting men, there is only one about a woman”
(Nelson 103).

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People are more interested in male sports because they believe that male athletes are better than women and that men know more about sports and are more capable. “It is impossible to find sports in which all men are better than all women, but it’s true that many male athletes are better than many female athletes, and that the overall records in sports belong to men” (Nelson
45). This does not mean people should be treating female athletes differently in sports. I believe and understand that every person participating in sports wants to be treated equally. Some people and even the media bring women down in sports. For example, women’s sport receives only zero point five percent of the total sponsorship income into the sport. I am sure that is very small comparing it to a man’s support in a sport. That is very unfair. There are many different ways people can help the females in sports. That is only if they wanted to put their personal time and money into it.
Since the 1880’s it was very strict for women in sports. It all began with men having all the rights over a woman in sports and in a marriage. It was like a tradition that I believe a lot of people were used to that time. Slowly women began to fight for their rights as a person. Once it all started changing, that is when things began to get out of the ordinary. So as it began to happen, this scared people because they were not used to that kind of change. If I was a woman back in that time, I would be filled with anger, unhappiness, and I would feel left out. It was unfair to women because sports brought them happiness too. If it wasn’t hurting anyone, then there really isn’t a problem with women in sports. I still believe sports should continue to change and I trust that it will. “Ideally, sports [should] be organized not according to gender but according to height, weight, or skill level. Eliminating the gender category would go a long way toward offering women a fair shot at sports, and offering men the myriad lessons of integration.

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(Nelson 57). If sports were organized by skill level or how good an athlete was, then sports in general would all be very different.
If change needs to happen, then people need to act now. If movies are made about past women in sports, it would make female sports more popular. Watching movies in general is such a popular thing. Even books on female athletes lives! Some may say that it isn’t a big issue and that it’s only a sport, but it isn’t just about the sport itself. It is the fact that women are still being treated unfairly to this day. This is why it is something so big. All the examples are given proof.
What is the point in saying “all men are created equal…” if people aren’t acting like we are all equal? It is saying no matter who we are, we should all be treated equally. Therefore, it is not just about the sport itself, it is also dealing with women.
People don’t get to choose what gender they are or how they were born. A person cannot change what they are. There is a saying that says, don’t judge a book by its cover. Which means we shouldn’t judge something because of the way it looks. That is exactly what people are doing, judging female sports. I believe everyone should be treated equal, not only in sports, but in everything. All athletes are terrific no matter what gender they may be. Some may come in first, second, or even last place in a sport, but in my opinion, what matters the most in sports is how an individual feels about it. If an athlete is enjoying the sport then they would also be enjoying life.
If a person is in a sport just to have some competition then that’s great too. If a person is in a sport for their own interest and their own happiness, then that’s all that matters. I believe it simply depends on the person itself. No one should pull another person down just because of their gender or anything else. People might not be able to ever solve Discrimination but, just like discrimination went away back in the 1800’s and the 1900’s, we can continue to improve it.

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Works Cited
Macy, Sue. Winning Ways: A Photohistory of American Women in Sports . New York: Henry
Holt, 1996. Print.
Maratta Sara,
They say/I say”: the moves that matter in academic writing: with readings
. New
York: W.W. Norton & Co, (2012): 537-544 .Print
Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 7 May 2015.
Nelson, Mariah Burton. Are We Winning Yet?: How Women Are Changing Sports and Sports
Are Changing Women . New York: Random House, 1991. Print.
Rogers Felisa,
They say/I say”: the moves that matter in academic writing: with readings
. New
York: W.W. Norton & Co, (2012): 529-536 .Print