Women's Cricket World Cup 2022
Women's Cricket World Cup 2022
Are Women and Men Treated Equally In Sports? Do Sports Have a Gender? By Dila K
Women are unfortunately excluded from sports and still face prejudice. Even though they are really successful, they are discriminated against. Sexism in sports is still a problem today and there isn't much being done to fix this. As it is the women's international day week, it also overlaps the Women's cricket world cup, we wanted to raise awareness on this topic.
The 2022 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup will be held in New Zealand in March to April this year. The tournament is going to be the twelfth edition of the Women’s Cricket World Cup. Last year it was scheduled from 6 February to 7 March 2021 but due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, it got postponed and now is scheduled to 4 March to 3 April 2022.
New Zealand, Australia, England, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, West Indies and Pakistan are the eight teams competing for the Women's Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.
The Women’s Cricket World cup has been around since June 1973. Their first tournament was held in England, and The World Cup is currently organised by the International Cricket Council. Australia has been the most successful team throughout the years,data shows.
Sexism and prejudice in Sports
The data also shows that women are really successful in cricket for more than 50 years, although cricket is considered a “manly” sport. Women's participation in sports increased throughout the years but unfortunately, there is still prejudice and sexism against women.
In your daily lives you can come across sentences such as “Football is for boys”,or “Girls can't play rugby”, and “Basketball is only for boys.” These are wrong statements because sports have no gender.
Every gender is allowed to play and be interested in every sport. When we seperate sports as men and women we disrespect each gender because we underestimate their abilities. Social standards are a big factor in women being underestimated too. If a woman is different from what the media expects them to be, they get excluded and disrespected.
There are lots of examples about how women are disrespected in sports. For example champion tennis player Serena Williams has been verbally attacked and was a victim of racism. Wrestler Ronda Rousey has been questioned about her sexuality constantly. Distance runner Caster Semenya has been forced to take a gender test and was the victim of numerous sexist remarks regarding her looks. These are just a few examples and they are only the side that the media shows us.
Interview
We also have interviewed some students from Waldegrave School For Girls Sixth Form and some teachers from Waldegrave School PE Department.
Tia B said that “A struggle women face when being involved in sports is that there’s lots of stereotyping and people think you won't be as good as men in sports.”
A response we got from Megan P was “Women get fewer opportunities and it is more difficult if you want to be involved.”
Their responses show us that they are aware that men and women aren't equal in sports,so we asked their opinions on why gender equality is important.
Emily H has responded “women and girls should have the same opportunities as men,especially competition-wise. Men and women get different titles.”
They all said that when women and men do the same sport,they have to get the same salary and same prize.
We wanted a professional to answer our questions so we interviewed a PE teacher. She said “women struggle in equality of opportunity. For example airtime. The majority of the tv sport programmes are male and women do not get promoted in programmes. Some women also need to have a job besides being a sports woman to represent their country whilst some men earn millions of dollars just by doing the same sport.”
We asked their opinions on how gender affects the ethics of sports.Their answer was really interesting.
“I suppose in terms of ethics of sports it's about being transparent, and there's no transparency between gender in sports. Unfortunately the governing bodies generally tend to be heavy with men. Women are not featured in the organisation.”
Lastly,we asked her how we can achieve gender equality in sports. She said “I think they should raise the profile of women in sports. People need more access to women's sport on streaming channels like netflix or iplayer. Mainstream tv like BBC or Sky News. I think more exposure will narrow the gap. Equality of sponsorship and equality of pay too, of course.”
As the Cricket Tournament is also overlapping the International Women’s Day,we should once again celebrate women and remember to include every gender in sports. This is because as mentioned before,sports have no gender.