GRSJ224/WomenintheSportsIndustry

Women in the Sports Industry

Introduction

Women and girls have made remarkable steps to gaining equality within sport and physical activity, but are still under-represented in multiple situations, specifically facing wages gaps and gendered workplaces. Women in the business industry have the ability to significantly affect the economy with an estimated increase in employment of 16.6% between 1994-2005, compared to men in this same time frame, to increase only by 8.5% . According to these stats, employment for women have increasing a large amount in one decade but the one stat that hasn’t been addressed is the gender differences in wage-gaps. Women experience marginalization, receive fewer returns for human/social capital investments, unable to get promotions and face work-family conflicts . These forms of prejudice and discrimination that many women face in the workplace are unfair and are enlarging the wage-gaps between genders. 

Sports industries in particular are predominately male-dominated and undermine the women in this field of work. One example of a sport-associated job are announcers for sports games and according to The Boston Globe, 20.9% of announcers are female and 79.1% are male. Referees, for example, are also male-dominated jobs in which only one female has ever refed a game in the National Hockey League in 1995. Heather McDaniel quit in 1999 because she got pregnant, and since then not one female has refed in the NHL.

Getting Women Involved

Here are some ways to assist females in becoming more involved in the sports industry. First, women and girls gain “valuable insights and networking opportunities” from being involved in mentorship programs (p. 32). Mentorship programs are well-established and create great benefits for any future employee in the sports management industry (p. 32). Women (and men) involving themselves with the community through mentorship programs is a great way to gain experience and create social ties with industry employers. Second, getting involved with professional associations through events, like the annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day . This event creates social and physical ties between the sports industry and women and girls that aspire to enter into a sports-related career, as well as provides them the opportunities to learn about different career paths. Third, participate in male-dominated networking activities. Networking, as Miller puts it, is “a critical component of success in business” (p. 33), but since many networking activities are for men-only, it becomes difficult for women to be a part of these networking activities. Last, by promoting opportunities for women and girls in sport by a higher education. Miller states in his research that job success and better job opportunities come from a higher education and is especially important in the job industry as job demand is higher than job supply, and employers will choose the employee possessing the “best skills, efforts, knowledge, and abilities” (p 35). These are only a few ways to get women more involved in the sports industry, but they are also very crucial ways of doing so. 

The Effects Human Resource Management has on Women in the Workforce

The government has pushed for equal employment in the workforce between men, women and other disadvantages groups. Human resource management systems, in the past, were one of the main jobs that enforced these gender inequalities. Recently, human resource management implemented a system to regulate and give women more equal opportunities and positions in their organizations/companies. The HRM industry has created “structural interventions” to provide these gender equalities in the work place (p. 104). Some of these structures include “tracking systems … [determining when] women are underrepresented”, “recruiting programs … attract[ing] qualified female job candidates” and “programs to develop skills of current female employees to ready them for promotion” (p. 105). These structures will benefit women in attaining a highly qualified job even if underrepresented as well as assisting them in the promotional aspect. 

First-Hand Experiences of Athletes VS. Sports Management

Sports industries are known for creating gendered work gaps that prefer male-dominated leaders over women, as femininity is associated with negative abilities in sports. For example, commenting on a man’s un-athletic capability’s as “he runs (or throws) like a girl” (p.168). Not only are there gendered differences within the sports management side, but there are also gendered differences within the athlete’s side. Kobe Bryant, the highest paid male athlete in the NBA, made a remarkable $23.5 million in the 2014-15 season, but compared to Tina Charles, the highest paid female athlete in the WNBA, she made a significantly lower amount of $105,000 pear year. Of the top 10 highest paid athletes in the world, 3 of which are all female tennis players and the rest are male. These statistics intensify the gender stereotypes that women are living with today and the struggles they face in terms of wage-gaps and job-gaps. 

Conclusion

As programs begin to build in many ways that benefit and assist women in finding and acquiring jobs, women are able to find passion in the jobs they love without having to worry about the discrimination of being a female in the sports industry. Multiple jobs in history were pre-dominated by males and then were overthrown by females, in a process called feminization. Family doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. were all associated with males, but are now female-dominated jobs. Feminization is a process that is happening in many jobs. It may not always result in the women become the dominate sex in the job, but it does allow for women to have bigger roles in jobs that are typically male dominated. Jobs that have a more equal balance between male and females, allows for equal opportunities within the workforce, and allows for equal competition to earn higher wages. The large wage-gaps between genders will become smaller, as more females use the structures that Miller proposed in order to gain higher work status.