Gender inequality in sport: The challenges facing female athletes

Despite the progress made in women's sport, major challenges remain, particularly regarding equal pay, visibility and training conditions.

Transcript

00:00 As the Women's World Cup enters its second week, gender issues in sports persist.

00:08 Despite progress in recognition and visibility of female athletes, wage inequality remains

00:13 a major challenge.

00:14 We are in huge wage inequalities.

00:19 The average salary of a WNBA player was 110 times lower than that of a male colleague

00:27 in the NBA.

00:28 We have a small overview of the inequalities.

00:31 From the players that we surveyed, which were 362 players across six continents across the

00:38 world who played in the World Cup qualification pathways for the World Cup 2023, there were

00:45 huge disparities within the wages that players received to compete for their national team.

00:51 29% of players were not paid at all for this competition and that meant that 66% of players

01:00 had to take unpaid leave or vacation from another form of occupation in order to compete

01:05 in the World Cup qualifiers.

01:08 Inequalities in the world of sports are not limited to income.

01:11 Training conditions for female players also require improvements.

01:15 Female athletes say they've received hand-me-downs from the men's team.

01:18 We women often collect the hand-me-downs that the boys have left.

01:22 All the equipment that the boys have left, which is too big or too small, is what we

01:29 will get back.

01:30 So typically, I have friends who played in the World Cup qualifiers not so long ago and

01:35 who got back the size 43 socks that the boys had left.

01:43 Discrimination also manifests through disparities in media coverage given to women's sports.

02:12 And public discrimination starts in the private sphere with prejudice, intimidation and sexism.

02:18 I was a witness to the ambient misogyny that reigns in this environment.

02:23 We only win 3-0 at half-time.

02:26 The one who trains us is extremely unhappy with this score and ends up clearly threatening

02:33 us with rape.

02:34 And he looks at us like that, one by one, pointing at us with his finger and he says

02:40 "You want to play with me? I'm going to fuck you all one by one."

02:44 (whooshing)