Women's Sport Rewards !

More than half the world population is of the female gender and yet both recognition and reward overwhelmingly favour male sporting hero's.  In fact, women's sport simply didn't exist at the start of the twentieth century and ever since it has been starved for attention in the newspapers.  A huge disparity exists between the pay allotted to the sexes.

This is glaringly apparent when it comes to cricket.   The men's Australian cricket team recently lost the Ashes to England but it's players each  receive an average stipend of a million dollars a season.   The Australian women's team came out on top of the women's world cricket competition - and receive a measly $85,000.

It could be argued that cricket has always been a male sport and that women have only recently started to compete on a national level but it is a fact of life that sporting coverage in both newspapers and television relegate women's sport to minuscule coverage compared to the male games. Often, what coverage exists treats the subject with a tinge of disparagement.

It seems to be more psychological because in the workforce women are paid less for doing precisely the same job as their male counterparts.  It has taken legislation to narrow that gap and in Europe quotas are being set to provide a gender balance on the boards of public companies.  The "glass ceiling "still exists, but progress in gender equality is slowly evening the situation in the public service.

Sporting prominence also seems to be selective.  Netball and women's basketball get very little media attention, but in today's world women tennis players and women surfers  have grabbed a much fairer share of media attention.   There is still a reward gap, but it is narrowing.

What is surprising is that the promotional rewards that women's sport offer are being ignored by the media.  Much of sport revolves around personalities.  A minor injury that may keep a key player off the pitch for a week is huge news that consumes acres of newsprint and air time.  This is exactly where advertisers want to see their advertisements placed and the wider sporting coverage the bigger the opportunity for profit.

Beside the state of play, sporting coverage also has a glamour factor.   In this recent Ashes series the famous "Wives and girlfriends " who accompanied the players got a lot of media attention, and in some magazines WAGS comment far exceeded the attention devoted to the male players.  It is interesting that the associations and love life of our women's cricketers was completely ignored by the media.

It seems to be a mind set that affects the editors and journalists covering the sporting world.   For some reason they have decided that women's sport is boring and uninteresting - and so it gets little coverage.  It is the skill of a gifted writer to pose a story that grabs attention and holds interest. A whole new world of opportunity awaits - if the media grasped the nettle and gives women's sport the attention it deserves.

This certainly holds true in the world of music.  Taylor Swift is a comely young woman with a fairly good voice and the media have promoted her to legendary status.   Music stardom is very much an equal opportunity world.  Remember Elvis Presley ?  And the Beatles ?

Women's sport is just waiting for it's time of excellence to be recognised !