Throughout all of sport history, women have not gained the same level of respect that men get, and that is a major issue. This article reflected on the double standards that women face in the world of sport because of the way the world reacted to Serena Williams devastating loss to Naomi Osaka at the US Open. While going through the history of sports in class on September 20, 2018, we learned that female participation in sport was very limited in the early 1800’s when organized sport was becoming a reality in America. This was just the starting point for the sexism that has plagued the sports world since that time. Women have never had the same rights as men in the sport world, including the right to have an emotional reaction. Serena’s outburst after losing the US Open final was received by fans as an emotional and over exaggerated reaction. (Giroux, Vredenburg, 2018) However, if a male athlete has a similar reaction (like Odell Beckham Jr. often has,) then he is seen as a passionate player who cares about his performance. The worst part about this reality is that this kind of double standard that exists in our society has been there forever, and it has been improving in more recent years. According to our class discussion about sport in the 1970s on September 20, 2018, Title IX was passed in 1972 to try and make opportunities in sport equal for men and women. Prior to this document, however, women’s ability to participate in sport was not protected by a legal document. However, even in modern times women do not enjoy the same luxuries in the sport world that men do. Despite the existence of Title IX, women still only get about 7 percent of sport media coverage and never get paid equally either. (Giroux, Vredenburg, 2018) According to our 1930s sport discussion in class from September 20, 2018, women also lost any gains they had made in the sport world during the Great Depression in the 1930s. With limited resources, we decided as a society that women’s sports was expendable at the time, and we cut most of the women’s sports out at that time so that they could do more useful things for their families. While women’s sports have come a long way since the early colonial days of America, the reactions surrounding Serena’s outburst at the US Open clearly show that women still face many struggles and double standards in modern day sport.
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