Women in sports: rising and enduring in a male-dominated industry

Jasmine Casimir // Contributing Writer

The world of sports has always been thought of as a male’s platform. The concepts of strength, performance and adrenaline put forth in sports are not often attributed to women.

Then, the year 1866 came around. Students at the all‐female Vassar College formed two baseball teams. Within a decade, in 1875, three men decided to create a women’s baseball club in Springfield, Illinois, where they divided the club into two teams called the “Blondes” and the “Brunettes.” It paved the way for women to continue to be physically involved in sports.

Women evolving in sports also came with criticism.

Many have heard the phrases “you throw like a girl” or “you run like a girl.” There has always been this idea that males represent strength, and females represent weakness. However, you can be a woman and have the ability to run faster, throw farther and fight harder than a man.

FIU Bay News’ Mallory Sanchez spoke with FIU swimmer Naomi Ruele on what it’s like being a woman playing in sports after being the first FIU student‐athlete to qualify for the Olympics.

“I’ve been told that I swim like a man because I’m fast, and I don’t think that a woman has to be a man in order to be fast or to train well,” Ruele said.

In addition to participating in sports, women also started reporting for sports. In the late 1930s, the wife of Harry Johnson provided color commentary during Johnson’s broadcast and became the first woman sportscaster.

The few women who started their sportscasting career after her were Jane Chastain, Donna De Varona and Jeannie Morris. Back then, there were no social media platforms for people to express how they felt on various topics or current events. Now, people run straight to Twitter or Facebook to voice their opinions. Twitter, especially, has been a very ugly place for women in sports media.

Julie DiCaro, an anchor for 670 The Score, has witnessed disgusting tweets by male sports fanatics, who often disagreed with DiCaro’s opinions. One once told her “You need to be hit in the head with a hockey puck by one of the BlackHawks and killed.” It makes you wonder, is it really that serious?

Albany Times Union columnist, Jennifer Gish wrote a column criticizing Bills fans, and she later received voicemails where she was told she should “stay in the kitchen” and that “women shouldn’t be writing about sports anyway.”

Gish was not the first to receive these types of comments, and she definitely won’t be the last.

The biggest challenge for women making it into the sports world is breaking down gender stereotypes and highlighting their professionalism and knowledge on the sports they’re playing in or want to cover as an anchor, reporter or writer.

“It’s very important to have thick skin if you want to work in sports,” FIU Student Media Sports Director Jayda Hall said. “People will always have their opinion about you and how you do your job, but as long as you are confident and know you do your job well, that’s all that matters.”

Image by Ron Pradetto, retrieved from Flickr.