The preva­lence of gender inequal­ity within athlet­ics is a rele­vant issue on not only a profes­sional scale but also within FCPS itself. 

Athletic clubs and programs in FCPS are almost entirely privately funded. The lack of recog­ni­tion predom­i­nantly female sports receive gener­ates an inabil­ity to inde­pen­dently raise suffi­cient funds which in turn creates a lack of finan­cial support to obtain essen­tial equip­ment and supplies. 

“I do believe gender plays a big role, a lot of indi­vid­u­als believe that women’s sports ‘suck’ and that they will never be anywhere near as enter­tain­ing as men’s sports … Boys basket­ball has a major crowd compared to girls basket­ball. We have maybe 15 people show­ing up to games max. However, boys basket­ball games have plenty of people watch­ing. Again, prob­a­bly because they are ‘more aggres­sive and fast paced’ which just is not the case in my opin­ion. Female athletes can be just as aggres­sive as male athletes.” said varsity girls basket­ball player, Halima Hajhas­san.

WNBA produces a smaller number of view­ers, corpo­rate spon­sors, and revenue compared to the NBA. The lack of media cover­age and there­fore revenue gener­ated from women’s sports is what a hand­ful of indi­vid­u­als point to as the reason why male athletes should be paid a larger salary. What this argu­ment does­n’t account for is the differ­ence in market­ing between the two, mens athlet­ics is adver­tised at a signif­i­cantly higher rate than womens. “Women’s sports account for 5.7% of media cover­age by ESPN … Mixed martial arts is a combat sport that has success­fully closed the pay gap … The UFC has success­fully marketed its female athletes. Many main events are female fight­ers and some of the sport’s biggest stars are women,” said athel​ogroup​.com 

The effects of insuf­fi­cient public­ity, hence profit from women’s athlet­ics, is also reflected in the wages of local female coaches. Accord­ing to FCPS athletic coach­ing contract records from 2016–17,  the high­est salary listed was the posi­tion of foot­bal­l’s head coach amount­ing up to $7155 annu­ally. The salaries of the head coaches of girls field hockey, girls volley­ball, and fall cheer­lead­ing combined made only 74 more dollars than the assis­tant coach of football. 

In the late 1800’s, devel­op­ment of infor­mal female athletic groups marked the intro­duc­tion of women in sports. It was not until a century later in 1900 that women were allowed to compete profes­sion­ally in the Olympics. Accord­ing to YWCA, “In 1900 women made up only 22 of the 997 contes­tants and [partic­i­pated] in only five of the 19 sports in the program.” Due to the delayed entrance female athletes made into the male domi­nated field, miscon­cep­tions spread about women’s bodies’ lack of phys­i­cal predis­po­si­tion to compete at a profes­sional level. 

Bias imposed on female athletes has created a gender wage gap and histor­i­cally limited womens oppor­tu­ni­ties for careers in athlet­ics. Accord­ing to athel​ogroup​.com, “Male athletes in basket­ball, golf, soccer, base­ball and tennis make anywhere from 15% to 100% more than female athletes … sports are natu­rally unfair to women …  [women] are not granted the same oppor­tu­ni­ties that men are to even be able to earn the amount of money that men do.” 

The unequal number of possi­bil­i­ties avail­able to women in sports is equally evident within high­school athlet­ics. “Girls have 1.3 million fewer oppor­tu­ni­ties to play high school sports than boys have. Lack of phys­i­cal educa­tion in schools and limited oppor­tu­ni­ties to play sports in both high school and college, mean girls have to look else­where for sports –which may not exist or may cost more money,” said women​sports​foun​da​tion​.com 

An influ­en­tial step in the direc­tion of gender equal­ity in athlet­ics came with Title IX, an amend­ment passed by Congress in 1972; which barred discrim­i­na­tion based on sex in educa­tion programs and activ­i­ties. “Over the past four decades, the Depart­ment of Justice’s work to enforce Title IX and other laws prohibit­ing sex discrim­i­na­tion in educa­tion, includ­ing its work in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of Educa­tion, has signif­i­cantly advanced educa­tional equity. However, despite the gains achieved in the last forty years, inequal­i­ties in educa­tion persist,” said justice​.gov. 

Acknowl­edg­ing the exten­sive history of gender inequal­ity within athlet­ics is the begin­ning of decon­struct­ing the prej­u­dice and bias imposed on female athletes today.