Female athletic achievements are highly unrecognized in comparison to male athletic achievements.
The fight for equal representation for both genders is not a fight that stops with voting rights and job placement. This issue extends drastically into athletics.
There is a huge gap between the level of recognition female athletes receive and the recognition male athletes receive on a professional as well as juvenile level.
This is seen vividly in American culture with the heightened pedestal upon which all professional, male dominated sports are placed and fawned over by devoted fans.
Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, the National Football League, the National Hockey League and many more all focus most of their attention on the male accomplishments and the male athletes.
American culture is highly devoted to these teams and these predominantly male athletes. We revere them like gods and go to extreme measures to show them love and appreciation for success in their athletic endeavors.
But where is all the appreciation and love for the female athletes? Why are there no household names of female basketball players or female soccer players celebrated on a regular basis for their achievements?
This has been the case for many years and continually is reinstated by Americans, as a conglomerate culture, giving unequal recognition to the male athletes versus the female athletes.
Because the focus continues to remain on the male accomplishments, our knowledge of strong female athletes will never change.
This can be changed at even the smallest level, such as high school and college athletics. The women’s athletic events deserve just as much preparation and enthusiasm as the men.
The female athletic games should be receiving just as much effort to promote and encourage attendance as the men’s.
Their game times should be held at primary times like the men’s games.
There needs to be a shift in thinking so we begin to see accomplishments by women as equal as those by men. Until we stop placing male athletes on a higher level than the females, the inequality will remain the same.
Awareness needs to be created for this issue of unequal recognition so we can learn to equally appreciate the talents and gifts of those people around us.
