Sexualizing our Female Athletes: How Media Holds Back Women's Sports Leagues
Friday, February 3, 2012 | by Joel Bain 
- Vancouver, British Columbia - In the sporting world outside of synchronized swimming and gymnastics, women have continually been trying to catch up to their male counterparts, since sadly sports has traditionally been viewed as a male area of expertise. Even back at the original Olympic games in Athens in 1896, the first Olympics Games President and Founder, Pierre de Coubertin, discounted the idea of women competing in such events as "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." Even when women were allowed to compete in lawn tennis and golfing in the 1900 Olympic games, de Courbertin stated his displeasure in 1910 that "if a woman wishes to pilot an airplane, no policeman has a right to stop her...but when it comes to public sports competitions, women's participation should be absolutely prohibited." In de Coubertin's mind, the Olympic games were "the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism...with the applause of women as a reward." While many great advancements have been made towards equality in sport, there is still a significant amount of work to be done, as a prevalent sexism still exists and shows little signs of going away on its own any time soon.
