Female athletes receive less attention, support

Features, Slideshow — By Caroline '13 on January 12, 2012 5:15 pm

 

On a Friday night, Taper Gym at Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City is packed for a boys’ Varsity Basketball game against their main rival, Loyola High School. Harvard-Westlake (H-W) dunks the ball, and the gym erupts with the cheers of students dressed in red and black, the official colors of the Wolverines.

The following weekend, the girls’ Varsity Basketball team has a game at the same time and in the same place. A handful of students populate the bleach­ers, along with a few parents. H-W scores a game-winning three pointer in the last few seconds, and the parents clap while a lone student cheers half-heartedly.

Attendance for women’s sports events at high schools such as H-W and Marlborough, as well as in the col­lege and professional sports worlds, is often significantly less than that of men’s sports events. The federal law Title IX, passed in 1972 to combat gender bias in sports, requires that athletic depart­ments at co-ed colleges and public high schools spend equal amounts of money and provide equal opportunities for women and men. Despite the law’s widespread enforcement, funding does not translate into loyal fans.

Men’s sports still enjoy more spec­tators, more community engagement and more cultural significance than women’s sports in both the high school and professional worlds, and this is an area that the law does not and cannot cover. Shows such as Friday Night Lights glorify the importance of boys’ high school football for communities around the country but ignore female athletes. The highest salary for veteran WNBA players was $101,000 in 2010, whereas an average NBA athlete earns upwards of $5 million. Magazines such as Sports Illustrated rarely feature female athletes on the cover, choosing instead the mus­cular men of the NBA, NFL and MLB.

Not only are boys uninterested in women’s sports, but most girls also say they’d rather watch boys play. Boys’ sports events become social events as well, attracting large groups of students who in turn pressure their friends to at­tend, mimicking the cultural expecta­tion that boys more naturally fit the role of athlete while girls are meant to cheer on feats of physical strength and agil­ity rather than participate. It’s true that men are biologically capable of play­ing sports at a higher level then wom­en, and perhaps stronger and faster athletes draw more enthusiasm from spectators, but we’ve all been told that as girls we can do anything boys can do. Is this a disparity that can never be made equal? And without loyal fans, will female athletes ever feel validated?

IS H-W FAIR TO GIRLS?

Although the Athletics Depart­ment at H-W claims to treat girls’ sports and boys’ sports equally, a closer look reveals that certain boys’ sports, like Varsity Football and Bas­ketball, seem to be treated as more important by both the administration and the school community at large.

Because it is a private institution, H-W is not covered under Title IX. Au­drius Barzdukas, Associate Head of Up­per School and Head of Athletics at H-W, said that while they do not pay specific attention to every detail of the federal law, H-W has equal opportunities for fe­male and male athletes, and the sports community is supportive of one another across the board.

“It’s part of our community expe­riences, that vibe of going and sup­porting your classmates. When there’s a big game, like when our girls’ soc­cer team plays Chami­nade, or when our girls’ volleyball team played Marymount, it was a packed gym. All of the football players were there. It’s kind of what high school is sup­posed to be,” Barzdukas said.

However, not all H-W students agreed with this sunny vision. Girls’ sports like Varsity Cross Country rarely see student support.

“We always joke about that at Cross Country. For Cross Country, it’s mostly parents.” H-W student athlete Elizabeth Thomas ’13 said. According to H-W Chronicle Sports Section Head Camille Shooshani ’13, students are more inter­ested in watching sports like football because that sport receives a lot of at­tention and money from the school.

“Football, first of all, is highly fund­ed. [Football games have] the In-n-Out truck, and that happens every single time,” Shooshani said, explaining that the school’s policy of paying for the fast food outlet’s catering truck to park on the sidelines at games attracts numer­ous hungry students. No other sports at H-W enjoy the fan-boosting effects of an Animal-Style Double-Double.

But Barzdukas claimed the In-n-Out truck is not enough of a draw to be a motivation for students to attend Var­sity Football over other sports events.

“Anybody who lives in LA would drive past at least three In-n-Outs to get to our In-n-Out truck, so I don’t see that as being the draw,” he said.

Director of Development Betsy Ste­phenson previously worked as Associ­ate Athletics Director at UCLA and the University of Kansas and as Director of Athletics and Recreation at Emory University and has dealt extensively with Title IX. Stephenson agreed that the In-n-Out truck’s presence at H-W football games makes that sport seem more important than the others.

“It’s a fairly visible way to see that they’re jazzing that event up, which could be viewed as raising the profile on that sport compared to the others,” Stephenson said. “Although it doesn’t feel right that this food service isn’t offered at other events, I think it would be hard to prove that it, in par­ticular, is a Title IX violation.”

H-W has a student-run club called the Fanatics, created about five years ago, which organizes student sup­port for sports and performing arts events. According to Head Fanatic Wade Clements ’12, he and his fellow Fanatics have noticed that boys’ Foot­ball and boys’ Basketball have much better turnout than other sports, and the group is trying to fix the problem.

“We definitely try to talk [the other sports] up more. We try to talk about games that will be really interesting, like the rival games,” Clements said.

According to Thomas, the Fanat­ics have made some headway. Girls’ Cross Country has seen a small im­provement in student attendance dur­ing the 2011-2012 school year.

“For finals we did actually have a couple of people come and cheer us on, which was really cool.” Thomas said.

However, H-W Chronicle Sports Copy Editor Robbie Loeb ’12 said he thinks the Fanatics have not been do­ing enough; in fact, he said he thinks the Fanatics are the ones who encourage student interest in certain sports over others because they are the ones who inform students about games and gen­erate enthusiasm for H-W activities.

SPECTATORS OR SOCIALITES?

Sports events in high school are not only about supporting fellow students; students go to games in order to hang out with their friends and meet new people. H-W Varsity Football games are highly social events, according to Loeb.

“I know that as a fan, I want to go to a game that is not only exciting, but it’s also a scene. That’s where everybody is, so I would want to go,” Loeb said.

At Marlborough, student attendance at athletic events is typically low. Ac­cording to Varsity Tennis player Sophie ’13, who attended the co-ed Brentwood School until 10th Grade, a major reason for this is that there is a lack of social pressure to attend.

“I think that people at Marlborough care; it’s just that they don’t really come to games…because other people don’t go,” Sophie said.

Jacky ’15 said she has only been to a Marlborough athletic event once, and her main motivations for go­ing were social.

According to Physical Edu­cation Depart­ment Head Ju­lie Napoleon, girls are too busy to attend games, but if more girls came, everyone else would also.

“Stu­dents have drama, students have dance, they don’t live close to the School, and they want to get home and do their homework. But I think that the girls need to get their friends to come. It can’t be from the top down; it has to perco­late from the students,” Napoleon said.

For many girls, attending boys’ sporting events is appealing because they are attracted to the male athletes.

“Generally speaking, jocks are cute,” Kate MacCarey ’15 said.

However, according to Art History in­structor Lu Wenneker, men’s cultural ide­als of beauty do not align with the female athletic build, making men less interested in watching women play sports than women are in watching men.

“At least some male athletes are at­tractive to look at. But women, when they develop the muscles needed for certain sports, they develop them in a way that destroys or at least affects what males think of as their femininity. Men want to look at women as they think they should be seen, as female creatures with breasts and a small waist, and not with muscle,” Wenneker said.

THE BIOLOGICAL ELEMENT

Many people say they prefer men’s sports to women’s because men’s are more fast-paced and competitive. Al­though not all men are stronger than all women, most male athletes have greater physical abilities than female athletes do, according to Science instructor Lisa Ellis.

Shooshani said she attends more boys’ basketball games than girls’ be­cause the boys are more physically ad­ept, making the game more exciting.

“The boys’ basketball players can dunk. It’s fun, you know?” Shooshani said.

Varsity Golf and Soccer player Kasey ’13 follows profes­sional sports and admitted she pre­fers men’s sports because men can do things female athletes cannot.

“Besides the Olympics, I just really don’t think [women] are that interest­ing to watch because it’s not as intense,” Kasey said. “I guess I look at [women’s sports] as less important, which is bad.”

Clements agreed that profession­al men’s sports were more “competi­tive” as well as more accessible.

“I watch much more men’s sports because it’s televised more… And world-wide, I’d say [men’s are] much more watched,” Clements said.

However, new Athletic Trainer Sonya Zadeh said she prefers watching wom­en’s sports.

“To me, women’s sports are just as exciting. It’s unfor­tunate, because the sports that are promoted heavily are the ones that bring in revenue. Women’s sports tend not to get promoted as well because they’re not big money grab­bers,” Zadeh said. “You know, everything’s supposed to be equal, but the way the games themselves are promoted, they’re not the same.”