Subordination of Women’s Sport: Women's Basketball

This week the main media I have consumed is sport. I was particularly surprised at the reaction to the UNC men’s basketball teams’ loss to rival Duke. What struck me about this was that our women had beaten Duke earlier that week; however there was no mention of this, few people even knew that the girls had played Duke let alone beaten them. The rivalry between the two schools has been around for many years, it is not specific to men’s basketball, it is fundamentally just between the two institutions. Given this I would have thought there would have been more celebration or attention paid to the girls’ game, as it was essentially a win for UNC over Duke. However to me this is once again a demonstration of how women’s sports are always seen as subordinate to men’s.

This is particularly prevalent in women’s basketball. While it is the biggest women’s team sport in America, it is not very lucrative. The WNBA; Women’s National Basketball Association set up a professional women’s league only 12 years ago, and even now most of these women do not earn enough to get by, while the Men’s players are making millions. Many women go to Europe, as the sport is more popular there and so they get paid more. One of the main ways for the league to make more money is through sponsors; however it seems that companies such as Nike have been reluctant to get involved with Women’s basketball. There is still very little apparel made specifically for women’s basketball from Nike, yet they have invested great amount of money in ranges for fads such as yoga. Therefore women’s basketball players have had to wear men’s basketball shoes, and clothing also, as there is a limited selection available to them.

Why is this? Is it because the sport is not popular amongst women? No it can’t be as increasing numbers of girls are playing in college, and as mentioned before it is the biggest women’s team sport in the U.S. I believe it is greatly because of the reputation of the sport as not being feminine. Unlike sports such as tennis, women’s basketball uniforms are almost the same as men’s and there has been no attempt made to make women hyper-sexualized. This I feel is a key reason it less popular, and why Nike and others have been reluctant to endorse it. Because people in society see this image of women as negative, companies are less likely to make sales from it, and thus they shy away. This once again raises questions for me as to whether women’s sports will ever be equal to men, and even if they do is it because of their talent, or their sex appeal?