Equal Sporting Rights for Women: A Future Goal

After a fierce and captivating competition, the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup wrapped up in Canada last week with the final match between the United States and Japan taking place in Vancouver.

Following confrontations before, at both the 2011 Women's World Cup final and the 2012 Olympic Games final, the two teams encountered each other once again in a crucial competition decider. In just the first 16 minutes, the U.S. took the lead to 4:0, and finally beat Japan 5:2.

For the third time, team USA secured the championship.

The grand soccer pitches, crowded stadiums and record ratings all seem to indicate a prosperous era for the women's game. However, under the shiny surface is a huge gap between women's and men's soccer. Only a meager number of women are working in the soccer industry. More disappointingly, women in some countries and territories still have to fight for the right to participate in sports due to religious and social reasons.

Statistics show only 7 percent of soccer coaches and 10 percent of referees are women. Only two of the presidents of the 209 member organizations of FIFA are women.

Even in the UK, where modern soccer originated, the ratio of men to women in soccer games are 12:1, and women only account for 5.6 percent of all the members of soccer clubs. In 1921, the UK even decreed that soccer was not for women, and they should be discouraged from playing. Brazil, whose national soccer team has won five world championships, used to have a law prohibiting women from the game, even in school and as a hobby, from 1941 to 1979. At that time, the Brazilian society argued that women were born to be wives and mothers, and thus should be barred from such sports involving strong physical confrontation. Though the law was scrapped, its negative legacy is still felt today. On occasions, Brazilian girls who play soccer are mocked as having “big feet”.

Gender inequality is not only common in the world's most popular game, but also pervasive in the whole field of sports. Generally speaking, only 7 percent of media outlets cover women's sporting events, and about 0.4 percent of commercial sponsorship goes to such events; in 30 percent of sporting categories, men win much more money than their female peers. For instance, Arsenal men's and women's soccer teams both won the Football Association Challenge Cup last year, but the former was granted 1.8 million pounds while the prize for the latter was 5,000 pounds. Unsurprisingly, the champions of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup got US $13.6 million, and the winner from the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil got US $576 million.

No matter what the reasons are for women to be discriminated against in the sporting field, in a world where gender equality is advocated, women deserve better treatment and equal rights.

To realize equality, FIFA launched the "Live Your Goals" initiative in 2011, aiming to provide women with more access to soccer, increase women soccer players to 45 million globally, and make soccer the number one game for females. In 2013, Women in Sport was established in the UK. The organization aims to give all women in the country the motivation to pursue a sporting career.

The U.S. set a good example in ensuring gender equality in sports. “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972” prohibited programs sponsored by federal government from sex discrimination. This act drew great public attention to women's sports on campus. Benefiting from the amendment, many girls are able to participate in sports at young ages. Statistics show, 48 percent of registered young soccer players are women. In history, a total of 332 schools have been involved in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women's college cup matches, and 197 women's teams are playing in National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) soccer games. Boosted by sufficient soccer talents provided by a powerful campus sport system, the number of registered women soccer players in the country has reached 1 million.

To date, prizes for 25 sport categories, including tennis, are the same for both sexes. However, there are still many challenges in the process of achieving gender equality in all categories. Despite the tremendous challenges and numerous difficulties, women's equal rights to sports must be achieved.

(Source: Xinhua/Translated and edited by Women of China)