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The high level reason across all sports is that much of women’s sports is marketed around sex. Women athletes are often required to show more skin, be more sexy
by spoonjim 5y ago
The high level reason across all sports is that much of women’s sports is marketed around sex. Women athletes are often required to show more skin, be more sexy, and do things like wear skirts (tennis) to seem more feminine. Add to this of course that the product endorsements typically go to the highest performing men but the most beautiful women in the sport. It’s more than the natural sex appeal that any top athlete would have — it’s encoded in different sets of rules for the women.
Even in gymnastics, the women have to do these little shimmies and shakes between their tumbling passes that the men don’t.
Hence the recent protests against the women’s beach handball outfits, and the ridiculous double standard they expose.
One nice counterexample is the WNBA, which has gained considerable popularity relative to other women’s sports in the US with very little sexualization of the athletes.
- jimbob45 5y agoThe WNBA is subsidized by the NBA. If you want to build a successful sports organization, don’t model yourself on the WNBA because whatever they’re doing isn’t working.
- deanCommie 5y agoSubsidized or invested in by? I know your point - today the WNBA loses money. But the NBA is a business not a charity. And they're a private enterprise. They don't do this out of the goodness of their heart or some social justice cause. Clearly they believe it's an investment worth making.
- jimbob45 5y agoThey’re 25 years in without turning a profit. If you’re such an optimist that you see that as an investment and not a subsidy, then I encourage you to sally forth because we need more relentlessly optimistic people like you in the world.
- spoonjim 5y agoOK, so female athletes have to win the game and give the male viewers a hardon? I don’t consider that “working” either.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoNot sure why you are being downvoted. I watched the man beach volley abd they wear long shorts. For some reason it seems to be better from an athletic perspecuve if women in beach volley wear skimpy underwear (there is IIRC a rule for max 3 cm of panths at the side). This is purely to show off the bottoms, nothing more.