The Student Room Group

Feminists: Do you think it's unfair that men's sport gets more media coverage?

Compared to female sports.

I find this an interesting point of discussion. It's certainly changing and women's sports are gaining more media coverage, but equality of media coverage seems to be a long way off. In fact, I don't think we will ever achieve it, quite frankly. Men's sport is far more popular among the general public, it's of a higher standard and more exciting to watch.

I've even spoken to a number of women about this issue and they agree that men's sport is more entertaining and more people follow it. So even most women themselves prefer watching men's sport - that's saying something!

But should this mean men's sport gets more media coverage? Just because it's popular? Perhaps it's popular because it gets most of the media coverage. If the sports pages of newspapers were equal between men's and women's football (for example), would we see more people follow the women's game?

I'd love to hear the views of men, women and any feminists on this particular issue.


As an aside point, I also think women undermine themselves in the equality argument when it comes to certain sports eg. tennis. Men play best of 5 sets in grand slams, women play best of 3 sets, but the women get paid the same. What happened to equal pay for equal work? If feminists truly believed in equality, they would be arguing for this to be changed (but they are not, I wonder why?).

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Reply 1
Capitalism at work really. It's the same reason why clothes shops always have about 3 floors dedicated to women's clothes and maybe half a basement for the menswear. Fair or not, equal or not, companies will opt for the money-making option every time.
Reply 2
Original post by Dez
Capitalism at work really. It's the same reason why clothes shops always have about 3 floors dedicated to women's clothes and maybe half a basement for the menswear. Fair or not, equal or not, companies will opt for the money-making option every time.
Wow, I never thought about the clothes thing! :eek: Now I think about it, you're right. Clothes shops do have disproportionate floor space dedicated to women's clothes.

Not that I care of course, but perhaps feminists care? (then again, feminists don't seem to care when women have advantages over men :rolleyes:)
Reply 3
Original post by snowman77
Wow, I never thought about the clothes thing! :eek: Now I think about it, you're right. Clothes shops do have disproportionate floor space dedicated to women's clothes.

Not that I care of course, but perhaps feminists care? (then again, feminists don't seem to care when women have advantages over men :rolleyes:)


Demand is always going to be a deciding factor in these things. Can you imagine if Boots had to give equal floor space to both mens and womens toiltetries? It would be a complete waste of everyone's time, and likely wouldn't achieve anything meaningful.

I don't think you can equate retail directly to sporting events, but it's still kinda similar. If we had regulations in place forcing the media to cover womens sports as much as they do mens, it would just be a massive expenditure for no reason, draining the economy of useful work. I think that's probably the wrong way to approach the problem. You can't artifically inflate demand, so we need a different approach. Not an easy thing to solve really.
Reply 4
The market wins. Less people watch womens sport (because they're crap) than mens sport.
Original post by snowman77
(then again, feminists don't seem to care when women have advantages over men :rolleyes:)

Feminism isn't just about rights for women, its about equal rights between genders. If there is an advantage over one gender then it should be talked about no matter what the gender is but it is normally women who have lesser rights.
I don’t think we will ever get to the point of equal coverage and I’m glad of it. I think that money and television have a negative effect in many ways. I love watching football and enjoy women’s football.
Well ... men’s sport is objectively better. I mean a simple solution (if equality were truly the aim) would be to remove sex segregation in sport and have men and women compete against each other, the problem there is that the coverage of women in sport would drop from the fairly low level it is now, to almost zero. Women’s sport already gets vastly more coverage than it deserves for the quality of the sport played ... you don’t want equality here.
Original post by snowman77
But should this mean men's sport gets more media coverage? Just because it's popular? Perhaps it's popular because it gets most of the media coverage.


No.
Original post by Nancyxttley
Feminism isn't just about rights for women, its about equal rights between genders. If there is an advantage over one gender then it should be talked about no matter what the gender is but it is normally women who have lesser rights.


Name a single right in current UK law, granted to men, but not to women.
Original post by 303Pharma
Name a single right in current UK law, granted to men, but not to women.


Its not just about laws though and probably worded it badly. There are still wage gaps and misogyny. But if you read what I said there are inequalities in both genders but just on different subjects.
Original post by Nancyxttley
Its not just about laws though and probably worded it badly. There are still wage gaps and misogyny. But if you read what I said there are inequalities in both genders but just on different subjects.


If there is a wage gap, and women are being paid less for the same job as men, why don't all employers hire women?
Original post by Dez
Capitalism at work really. It's the same reason why clothes shops always have about 3 floors dedicated to women's clothes and maybe half a basement for the menswear. Fair or not, equal or not, companies will opt for the money-making option every time.


Capitalism only sees one colour, and that is green, it cares not for gender or ethnicity, it only aims to profit maximize.
I think it is definitely unfair the media all around the world undermine women’s sports and this is because of the past where women didn’t even play sports and football was a new common sport at those times men mainly played it and women were not treated equally.so yeah it’s definitely not equal feminism is about equality socially economically and and socially let’s all call for equality in sport!
(edited 5 years ago)
if women were playing sports with barely any clothes on, you'd quickly see it outpace male sports.

sex sells.
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by HighOnGoofballs
If there is a wage gap, and women are being paid less for the same job as men, why don't all employers hire women?


Because men need jobs too. Wage gaps are often in jobs that require a lot of skill so only certain people can be hired. For example some male doctors get paid more than women doctors.
On average, men's sports tend to be more popular or to a higher standard in the opinions of most of the general public. Whilst this may be true in some cases, maybe, one way in which we could combat this is to ensure that we equally encourage men and women alike to participate in all sports and ensure training standards are equal for both. When I, a woman, played at the youth level for a premier league club, we had significantly less funding than the boys teams. Maybe, if we were to start slowly bridging the gap in funding, encouragement and training standards, we could gradually stop, or at least lessen this issue.
Original post by num.7
if women were playing sports with barely any clothes on, you'd quickly see it outpace male sports.


Would we **** :biggrin:
Men’s sport = higher skill level = more views = more £. Simple.
Original post by snowman77
Compared to female sports.

I find this an interesting point of discussion. It's certainly changing and women's sports are gaining more media coverage, but equality of media coverage seems to be a long way off. In fact, I don't think we will ever achieve it, quite frankly. Men's sport is far more popular among the general public, it's of a higher standard and more exciting to watch.

I've even spoken to a number of women about this issue and they agree that men's sport is more entertaining and more people follow it. So even most women themselves prefer watching men's sport - that's saying something!

But should this mean men's sport gets more media coverage? Just because it's popular? Perhaps it's popular because it gets most of the media coverage. If the sports pages of newspapers were equal between men's and women's football (for example), would we see more people follow the women's game?

I'd love to hear the views of men, women and any feminists on this particular issue.


As an aside point, I also think women undermine themselves in the equality argument when it comes to certain sports eg. tennis. Men play best of 5 sets in grand slams, women play best of 3 sets, but the women get paid the same. What happened to equal pay for equal work? If feminists truly believed in equality, they would be arguing for this to be changed (but they are not, I wonder why?).


Last year as part of our GCSE English Language speaking assessment, I actually chose to talk about this topic. The statistics are out there and the disparity is astonishing. I think it’s unfair, especially being heavily involved in sports myself. I concluded, how can they inspire girls to take up sport if they have no inspiration or limited role models? Personally I feel it’s more popular cause it gets more coverage. I agree it’s getting better though.
(edited 5 years ago)

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