Hello, I’m Jamie and welcome back to our podcasts of yo is this sexist. Joining us this week is Molly Erneston Hi, I’m
Molly Erneston and today we will be discussing sexism in sports.
This has been an ongoing issue in our world for as long as sports have been played, and is something that deserves a lot more awareness wants people’s attention, female athletes across the world are just as talented and just as hard working as male athletes and should not have to go through obstacles and disrespect to try and prove this.
We are both currently members on the women’s lacrosse team at The Ohio State University that face our own personal struggles and experiences with sexism in sports growing up as to be male athletes at a younger age, it was always hearing that boys are faster and boys are stronger than us, but now there are much more serious issues, and it’s hard to hear about situations happening, and the National College Athletic Association of America. Janie, have you experienced any sexism in your sport recently,
definitely as a younger girl there was always like the rude remarks, even in like gym class saying like, you can’t play with the boys or you can’t hang with them. But I mean as a female athlete you kind of get used to it, which is something that like shouldn’t be the norm.
I agree there definitely is huge lack of respect for female athletes, just all across the board I remember like growing up I always would race with the boys in what to do with the boys were doing and they always said I couldn’t do that because I was a girl and girls can’t play with boys, which is such a lie because girls can keep up with boys.
And even when we would win the races you still didn’t get the respect that the fastest boy would get.
Yeah exactly, there’s no respect and if you did, they would call you, like, a boy, or they would make fun of you for having bigger legs or bigger muscles. It was always something that set us apart and made us less.
Yeah, there’s definitely a stereotype that comes along with being a female athlete, Not just the sexism part but it’s also like people judge you think you’re more manly, you don’t have like female characteristics just because you’re athletic and play sports, doesn’t mean you’re not a girl.
I agree 100% I definitely suffered throughout my high school and middle school experiences, always being a little bit bigger and more muscular than the boys and other girls in my grade, it definitely set me apart, and I definitely got picked on for it.
I think it especially escalated when, like, for me, I don’t know if you agree, but when we got to college, the stereotype definitely like grow because other girls that aren’t athletes start to look at you like, Oh, they’re just jocks like nothing else that matters besides how they play their sport and like how they execute, which is not the case.
Yeah I agree 100% I also experienced like in high school, both of us committed us freshmen and sophomores in high school, and all my guy friends always messed with us cuz, they’d be like, Oh, if I played women’s lacrosse I could go to the top. Do you want school like that’s the easiest sport in the world, especially being a woman like any boy claims if he played girls sports he could just be anyone, do very,
yeah and the boys at my in my high school who committed to play men’s lacrosse were never judged for playing lacrosse as a guy because people looked at it as much more bigger deal and it was her females playing lacrosse.
Yeah, it just, there’s way more respect for boys that are Division One athletes and professional athletes than for women, even our America’s women’s soccer team, they get joked on and messed with all the time even though they’ve won more championships than the men’s team.
Yeah, they’ve won an insane amount of World Cups and Olympic saris. And they still aren’t gaining respect which is crazy to think about, especially with the current situation that just happened in the NCAA Tournament March Madness, like the girls got no equipment for weight room and they’re basically given like jail food, as they were in quarantine.
It just really is sad, and it’s not even about the money, it’s not about girls bringing in less money. This is why they get that. It’s just common sense. Now the NCAA, we’re all athletes, all of us need weights we need squat racks we need literal like things to do, other than weights that go up to 30 pounds like it’s just disrespect. We all men’s and women’s basketball men’s and women’s lacrosse every athlete needs those facilities and those things and the NCAA just completely ignored it and thought the woman’s basketball team would just not need it at all,
and that all goes back to this stereotype of being a female athlete, a stereotype that the NCAA was giving us was that we’re not as strong as men by giving us only 30 pound dumbbells and no squat racks or anything.
So, it’s just sad like the NCAA has been bringing down women’s sports for as long as sports have been around they’ve made it seem like we’re less than boys, and the boys get more everything. And it just, it needs to stop and it needs to come to an end.
A current Oregon basketball player has been going viral on Tik Tok because she’s finally speaking out she’s sick of the inequality and sexualization going on in sports sit on a prince, have you heard her.
Yes, I have I do follow her on tick tock, and I’m really proud a lot of women’s basketball players have been speaking out about this issue, and I’m glad they recorded it because I feel like people. We could be talking about it and, but no one really sees the issue and like the tech talks and the videos they’ve made makes it so much more real.
Yeah, she’s brought a lot of awareness of female athletes, but it also came with a, like a bunch of comments that I read on her thing was like, males that who don’t even play sports, that were like making fun of her or making fun of the female tournament for the March Madness was just crazy because people like Steph Curry and LeBron James gave her a shout out saying like woman sports are just as important as males but in sports.
We work just as hard like there is no difference in our work ethic, sorry that the men get more views, but women work just as hard and as just as athletic is just as much as a time commitment for every sport, no matter if you’re male or female. And we need the respect, it’s gone on too long that we have this lack of respect. I’m glad that Sedona Prince and a lot of girls in the March Madness are speaking up about this, and actually I heard that Sedona Prince is suing the NCAA for this institutional sexism.
Yeah I agree it’s definitely crazy especially, it’s 2021 and like, for the past year, all we’ve talked about, and all of our country has tried to improve on is equality in those worlds but then sports is just another category where it’s, nothing’s equal and there’s discrimination against depending on your gender, which is something that should be long gone.
And it’s just crazy the way that powerful institutions and college sports have put down women’s sports for so long and they go beyond putting less effort into logistical preparation for championships, it’s just, it just messed up.
Something that our head women’s lacrosse coach is really advocate on is, she’s told us that if we ever see something that the men’s lacrosse team is gaining access to or receiving that we should tell her right away because she’s going to make sure that we also have access to that and we receive the same things as them because she truly believes in equality and we’re just as important and just mean just as much to them, to the university.
Yeah, she really does do a great job of making us feel like badass woman, and just showing us that we deserve everything that we’ve worked for and no man deserves more than us because they’re not doing anything different. And I honestly think it’s great. She really empowers us, and we just get to feel strong about ourselves and makes us confident. I also heard about many other issues going on in this world like just coming with like field space and like, even in high school girls get the worst fields girls get, they don’t get the weight room time it’s just
practice blocks like I know where we don’t have one of the best practice blocks this semester. And that’s probably due to males getting first choice Phila athletes
are just always the second choice no matter what we’re doing.
It’s just a real issue.
Yeah we are fed up.
It’s annoying, taking the stand.
We tell you said because we should
do what Sedona prince did maybe we should start making tic TOCs speaking out to the world.
Just giving other girls confidence to speak up because this is an issue and we shouldn’t think that if we speak up it’s threatening our playing time or we’re not going to get respected because look at what those girls are doing they’re getting respected and they’re getting their voices heard. So it’s time for other women in sports to speak up about sexism and other things going on in their sport.
Yeah, I totally agree and I think it’s a really good point, people stepping up and speaking out is just setting an example for the younger generations of female athletes coming of age, behind us to be even more confident and empower them even more to be the strong badass female athletes that we are. Yeah, well, I’m so happy you joined us today Molly and I’m so happy that we’re on the same page about this topic, I hope it only goes up, and improves from here.
I agree. Thank you so much for having me Janie. I’m glad that we are going through this together and we are fighting to stop sexual sexism in woven sports.
Thank you.