Do Female Athletes in Canada Currently Enjoy Equal Opportunity in Canadian Sports?

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A third factor that is affecting equal opportunities for women in Canadian sports is media coverage. When you look on television, social media, or even on your local newspaper, you may see the lack of media coverage women sports receives. According to the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Woman, televised sports coverage devotes less than 3% of its media coverage to female sports. Furthermore, only 27 out of the 124 sports broadcasts during the Canada summer games were devoted to women’s events (Canadian Association for the Advancement of Woman 2015) . One can conclude from this research that inequalities still exist, and the lack of media coverage does not give the same opportunity to women as men. With men having access to more media coverage, this gives both professionals and non-professionals more exposure to recruiters and viewers which is unfair to female athletes because they have less access to potential opportunities than males. Furthermore, you may have noticed, that when watching sports many of the referrers for well known professional sports such as basketball, football or even soccer are males. Basketball has recently just begun to introduce some female referees, but it doesn’t end there. You may also notice that majority of the commentators who commentate on various sports are males, this again goes back to gender stereotypes and gender socialization. People may sometimes associate the job of a commentator and referee to not be suited for a female, because society has created a norm where women are assumed to work in other positions like retail or other similar job areas. In addition, timing is also a key factor in media coverage, women receive significantly less time of media coverage than men (Canadian Association for the Advancement of Woman). Another personal experience I had was in high school, when there would be recruiters coming to the school and other sporting events. When I participated in OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) an event where athletes all over Ontario would come together to compete, there would be hundreds of recruiters that would attend the event. Performing well at these events was important because it meant potential opportunities to get into great schools and to also be eligible for a scholarship. However, I noticed that throughout all my years of OFSAA, that the recruiters were mainly filming and taking notes on male athletes even though the females were also performing exceptionally well. The number of male students that were being scouted easily outnumbered the females, and very few female athletes obtained scholarships to play reputably good schools. This unfair advantage disappointed many female’s athletes, parents, fiends and family because we all knew how hard everyone had worked just to eligible for OFSAA, and the amount of media coverage they were receiving was very little, decreasing the chances of them being noticed, furthering the gender gap and inequalities for Canadian women.

This leads to my next point which is financing. Athletes who perform exceptionally well and are scouted to go to colleges and universities can receive scholarship and other additional funding which is extremely helpful to students who could have not otherwise pursued sports at the institution due to their financial position. This essentially removes a burden from the athlete, allowing them to really focus their energy and effort towards both school and sports.

According to the Ontario Universities Athletic Association, of the total dollar amount of Athletic Financial Awards provided by an institution annually it must provide no less than 45% per gender of the total dollar amount. E.g Based on an amount of $100,000, females can be eligible for up $55,000 whereas males would only be eligible for up to $45,000 and vice versa (Student Financial Rewards 2017). This is a huge step in managing gender inequality as it acts to remove unfair advantages and give females an equal chance to receive the same, or even more funding than male athletes. However, although this is a huge leap towards closing the gender gap, women are still receiving less recognition than men, and hence, less opportunities to attract potential recruiters and scholarships.

One of the most controversial topics still being discussed to this day is equal pay. Women have been battling pay inequalities for decades now, but despite this great progression, the disparity still exists. When looking at the NHL (National Hockey League), Canadian players are eligible to earn millions of dollars whereas the CWHL (Canadian Women’s Hockey League), players earn less than six-figures. There is a significant difference in pay, which can discourage some females to pursue sports as a career. This is unfair to individuals who have a passion for particular sports, such as hockey in this example. Women who have been pursuing hockey their whole life, they train and work just as hard as men and they should receive the same incentives to want to pursue their passion as a career. Imagine giving one-hundred percent of your effort your whole life just to be discouraged that pursuing that as a career isn’t a viable option because you wouldn’t be in any financial position to support not only yourself but your family as well. Some of the factors which play a role into low pay for female athletes could include lack of viewers. There must be a fanbase in order to attract customers to want to come and spend money to see you play. However, going back to gender stereotypes and socialization roles, society has put so much energy and importance on male sports that female sports in Canada has become of little relevance. Furthermore, the lack of media coverage also contributes to the low pay. When sports networks don’t broadcast female sporting events frequently, it limits their fan base because they aren’t receiving enough recognition to become important enough to want to go see. Overall pay for working women has made tremendous progress, however, for female athletes it a lot of work needs to be done.

In conclusion, one can see that females have come a long way, their leadership is steadily increasing, with a lot more athletic leadership positions being filled in by women. Furthermore, the gender gap is also continuing to decrease due to an increase in women’s participation in Canadian sports, breaking the gender stereotypes. If the number of females in high school continue to pursue an interest in sports, then this can lead to more recruiters and scouters coming out to schools to scout more Canadian female athletes. This will in turn increase the amount of scholarships if many female athletes are being selected to go play at the college and university level. Also, the amount of media coverage needs to be addressed. Sporting networks should start airing more women sporting