Halkidis, A. (2012, September 4). Women tackle college discrimination
with Title IX.
Forbes.com Retrieved from
discrimination-with-title-ix/
Vivian
Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter have been documenting the ongoing problem of a
sports gender gap with their publication of “Women in Intercollegiate Sport”
for thirty-five years (Halkidis, 2012). The main persistent problem discussed
in the study is women in coaching.
While there
is impressive ground made by female athletes there still seems to be a lack of
women in coaching. Less than 50% of women’s sports have female coaches. There
seems to be four main problems as to why women aren’t coaches. The problems are
wider employment opportunities for women, the rise in salaries for sports
coaches making them more attractive to men, a lack of recruitment for women in
athletic positions, and women are struggling when it comes to coaching a men’s
team.
Elizabeth
Naumovski who is the head women’s basketball coach at CUNY Queens College thinks
the problem lies in the athletic programs as a whole, not just coaching alone. Naumovski
states that “until we have more female faces in athletics period, those numbers
won’t grow in coaching” (Halkidis, 2012). Naumovski also states that as a whole
we would have made a lot more progress than we have, but women’s fight is
always going to be an ongoing process.
Ellen,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you wrote on this topic. I totally agree with your final statement that "women can succeed just as much as men in the coaching field." I coached for more than 20 years and at least half of the people I coached were boys or men. Of course, it is different when we talk about coaching a team sport like football or even basketball. An example of the challenges a woman might face came when the Cavaliers played the Clippers last week. The female ref (Lauren Holtkamp) T'd Chris Paul, who later made the statement, "Maybe this isn't for her," which some interpreted as meaning that maybe being a ref isn't what a woman should be doing. While I am not convinced that was what Chris Paul meant, I think that attitude may be prevalent whenever women enter a terrain that has long been dominated by men.
Thanks for sharing on this important topic.
Dr. Spencer
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI do think that women can succeed just as much as men do in sports. Growing up I played softball and was coached by my mom up until high school. She was the main reason why I know what I know about softball. I do think that women can have a powerful impact on sports if more women were to be coaches. Working with BGSU Athletics I see a lot of how Coach Roo's coaches the women's basketball team. I think that she is a awesome coach and knows how to lead the team. I think that this shows by how the team has been playing the past few years. I think female athletes feel more comfortable working with women coaches then they do men. For me, I prefer women coaches. Growing up I had a lot of women coaches but once I got to high school I had all men coaches.
ReplyDelete-Gina Costanzo
Gina,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you shared about this. I often ask people if they would prefer to have a male or a female coach. I am surprised how often people say that a male coach makes them work harder but a female coach is easier to talk to. I would like to believe that a female coach can make you work just as hard, and perhaps there are also male coaches who listen as well as female coaches do.
Thanks again for sharing.
Dr. Spencer
I don't know if it is because I play a girls sport, but I have had almost all female coaches. I have had a few males coaches also though. I have found it much easier to learn from female coaches. I was able to relate and learn from them much easier than my male coaches. I believe that a coach has had to play the sport that they are coaching at a competitive level to be able to underspand the sport and relay the information and skills. This is why I do not believe females should be able to coach football and males should not try to coach sports such as softball or volleyball. Both male and female coaches have been equally tough on me. I believe I have benefitted more from my female coaches though. Male coaches focus only on the physical aspect of the sport and how hard you can work, and while this is important, there is so much more to the game. My female coaches have focused on the mental aspect of sport and have improved my game greatly.
ReplyDelete