When it Comes to the Matter of Gender, is it Really All "Fair Play"?
Gender bias in sports is not only an issue in the professional leagues, but it is also relevant in your very own high school. In 1972, an education amendment was passed called Title IX, allowing women to get equal opportunity in school programs that were federally funded, mainly athletics. Every school was required to provide resources for female teams and allow women to play on male teams if a female team had not or could not be formed. That was less than fifty years ago, happening in most of our parents’ lifetimes. What Title IX does not provide, however, is equal support and treatment of male and female teams. The issue of gender bias in athletics at Hawken seems to become more and more pressing by the year as we enter into an era of female empowerment and focus on gender equality in sports.
Possibly the most prominent issue at Hawken that highlights the gender bias in sports is the lack of spectators at girls’ games compared to boys’. While there is no way to get an exact number to support the discrepancy, anyone that has gone to a boys’ basketball game knows that the stands are always packed. There is often no room to sit on the bleachers as there are around 30-40 students attending their games. At girls basketball games, however, players can say confidently that the highest amount of fans they have had attending at a game (which was their senior night) was around twelve. Even this game, which was advertised and promoted by the athletics department with a Shake Shack half court contest and the VIP fan couch, had mostly empty seats in the student section. In fact, the person that won the VIP fan couch didn’t even show up and that promotion was never done. However, when these promotions were done at boys games, people showed up in droves to try to hit the half-court shot and support their classmates; so why isn’t the same support shown for girls? Firstly, some people argue that girls’ sports are just less fun to watch because they are less exciting and less action-packed. When students were asked about this, a variety of responses were recorded. One male athlete described the difference, “Boys basketball is a faster-paced game… people want to see more action and that’s more readily available in a boys’ game purely because of size and athleticism”. However, one student described the girl’s basketball games as being “more entertaining and more competitive, but because they don’t give them Friday nights no one goes.” This contrast of opinions can be partially blamed for students being predisposed to the idea that girls’ sports are not entertaining, or because they subconsciously hold their own bias on which sporting event they desire to watch. The football and boys basketball games are events where you socialize with friends that people prioritize going to. A majority of people seem to have a habit of putting boys’ games in their calendar, but not finding girls’ games important enough to do the same. Some students even go as far as saying that girls don’t deserve the attention they want. A member of the girl’s basketball team describes the way she and her friends are spoken to by their classmates, “They make rude comments about how boys basketball is better than girls and how we are less entertaining to watch and that’s also why people don’t watch the WNBA”. After conducting several interviews, almost every girl on the team could pick a moment where they have been patronized for being on the girls’ team. One team member specifically recalled when in a conversation with a classmate about whether girls should get Friday night games, she was told that no one would come even if they were on Fridays. Another member told us about a time when a peer told her that the girls get fewer spectators because the boys’ freshman team could beat the girls’ varsity. All of these comments have deep sexist roots, as well as the assumption that the girls are worse, despite having a better season record than the boys. Head coach of the girls’ basketball team, David Murray, is a big advocate for the girl’s team and has done a lot to fight for equal treatment. He comments on the perceived differences in the athletes, “I believe that there are distinct physiological differences between female and male athletes. For example, scientific research indicates that on average males have longer bones and a higher ratio of muscle mass to body weight. However, when it comes to less quantifiable characteristics like toughness, work ethic, and competitiveness, I do not believe there are significant gender-based differences… any argument to the contrary is scientifically baseless and only serves to propagate harmful and derogatory stereotypes”. Secondly, some question the effort put forth by the athletics department regarding the discrepancy. When the promotions for games like the half-court shot contest and VIP fan couch started, two boys’ games got them while only one girls’ game did. The Hawken Athletics twitter account also live-tweeted six regular-season boys’ games and only one girls’ game which was the first playoff game. While gender bias comes from the students and their predisposed mindsets, it is also perpetrated by the inconsistency of the advertising done by the school. Gender bias is also supported by the Chagrin Valley Conference. The Chagrin Valley Conference has control over the scheduling of boys and girls games, which plays a role in determining the number of spectators that attend. For basketball, boys are permitted to have conference games on Tuesdays and Fridays while girls are given Wednesdays and Saturdays. One of the most common excuses heard when asking why more students go to boys games is because they take place on Fridays. Friday night games are more convenient for students to attend because they are able to go to a game immediately after school is let out, while not having to worry about many factors such as transportation and food that they would have to deal with on a Saturday game. Girls varsity basketball head coach David Murray took matters into his own hands when he emailed the CVC commissioner this year about why only the boys get these Friday games. He brought up to the commissioner a possible rotating schedule for the Friday night games so that there would be more opportunities for girls to have a packed student section. Coach Murray comments on why this equal treatment is important, “I know how much time and energy our players invest and I would love it if we had greater fan support.” The athletic department does understand the reality of the attendance discrepancy and is trying to mend the issues that female athletes are facing in the Hawken community. Mr. Doyle comments on what his department does to maintain gender equality in sports, “In terms of coaching, number of opportunities, investment, we try to maintain equal treatment… There’s a lot of work to do in terms of attendance, but that goes well beyond Hawken... it is discouraging”. Mr. Usaj and Mr. Doyle actually started the promotions to try to get more people to go to the games. They wanted to fill the stands and make the games more like events and the place to be that night. Obviously, the solution has not been found yet to this issue, but the department is open to suggestions on how to get students to games that aren’t just football or boys basketball. Mr. Doyle even brought up the Friday/Saturday game issue at the scheduling meeting for the CVC and advocated for girls to get the same amount of Friday games as boys, but this battle was lost. Mr. Doyle says that the argument against this was that it doesn’t change attendance numbers, people still come out for boys on Saturday and girls’ games on Friday are severely under-attended. He disagrees with this claim but it was unfortunately overruled. One thing that most people can agree on is that girls sports deserve a lot more recognition and respect than they are given. We challenge everyone reading this to attend at least one girl’s game this spring whether that is lacrosse, softball, or a track meet. Changing our mindsets as students is just the first stepping stone in making a system founded to ignore women, to empower them.