Jane English in 1978 wrote a paper on Sex Equality in Sports in the paper she posed the question on what really is regarded as there being same opportunity for women as far as sports are concerned. In the paper she argued that what is considered to be people concept of sport in biased as it in a masculine way. This she said was based on history which in the past sport was purely for men and not women and thus was male dominated. She argued that had the women been the dominant sex in history, maybe the evolution of sports could have been affected and be favoring women. Therefore with women being dominant historically, the sport would now be viewed in a different way, as with more emphasis on balance, time, small size and flexibility and not as we today view sports as related to speed, strength and big size (Morgan, 1988).
The female sports over the years have been given lesser attention as compared to the male sports globally. Women have been regarded as though they cannot compete well and they have been faced by various stereotypes. Women have been regarded too fragile to play any sport that is regarded as strenuous. In the 1920’s there were beliefs that women could not be able to perform well in some competitions like the interscholastic competition. There were incidences where doctors in the 1930’s argued that competitions that involved high level of stress would have a negative effect on the woman’s reproductive. Olympics which are the known competition took ages without admission of women sports. It is not until 1912 that women were allowed to compete in the Olympics. In some sports like marathon it was not until in 1984 that women marathon was accepted in the Olympics. There are a number of sports in the Olympics up to date which are only for men such as boxing.
There are huge differences even on publicity on how male and female sports are given. The football world cup is the biggest sports event that has huge publicity yet the women’s world cup is a sport that receives less publicity and is low key. Does it mean that women are terrible in competitions? The over emphasis on male as far as sports are concerned is because of the history where until recently men have been the one leading and the role of the woman was in child birth and rearing. It is still difficult up to date for us to get over history and appreciate women sports in the way it is different from men due to our differences in make biological make up.
As a male I still feel that female sports are not enjoyable and the reason of the difference. This is because the sports are not competitive as the male sports are. Studies have shown that most women prefer watching male sports than female sports. The find male sport to have energy and vigor, this is not something to do with history. Most people preferred to be in an environment that is full of energy and this is what male sports offer thus their higher status than the female.
Finally with both arguments, it is important that we all realize that both male and female have a role to play in our society. It is important to give the role that women play in sport recognition and over it a level playing field with women. Offer the same facilities and there are aspects of the women sports that we may in future begin to look for as it grow to be different to the male sports