Women's Participation in Sports Through the Years
Women have made significant strides in breaking down barriers and achieving success in a wide range of sports, from tennis to soccer to gymnastics over the last 50 years, let's take a deeper look at it.
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Photo Credits: Nafisa Samreen TK
Women have always had a tough time making their mark in the sports industry in comparison to men. Katherine Switzer was the first woman to put her foot down and made history in 1967 by getting around a ban that prevented women from competing in marathons. Switzer completed the marathon in a little over 4 hours despite the organisers best attempt to stop her from participating. The number 261, Switzers bib number that was almost snatched away by the organisers, is special to all women as it is widely regarded as a symbol of equality in sports.
According to a report by Repucom, the gap between the number of sportsmen and sportswomen have declined sharply over the last 50 years and over 50% of women have some interest towards a sport or even multiple sports. The introduction of mass media has helped bring sports closer to women
According to data by Iberdrola, women who participated in sports during their schooling phase have a 76% chance of remaining interested in sports for the rest of their lives, which means that they are thrice as likely to be interested. Now if we put that along with the data we have about women's participation based on decades, we can see that during the 1970’s there was a major increase in women's participation which means that beginning from those who went to school in the 1970’s, the rate of interest in sports has only continued going upwards. The trend continued on from the 1970’s as women not only encouraged their kids to take up sports but many also took part in their training and also provided vocal support.
Nonetheless, these numbers vary from country to country. The statistics used here are based on individuals from the United States of America, but we could take the stark contrast of China and Japan as an example. During the 1970’s China had only 14% of its women between the ages of 16 and 29 who did not participate in sports at school, whereas in Japan 84% of them did not participate.
The data presented showcases women's interest in sports across two generations, women under 50 that are women born after the 1970’s and women over 50 that are women born before 1970’s. It shows how the percentage of women who have no interest in sports whatsoever has decreased by 10% over the years, which means that a much smaller pool of women have no interest in sports whatsoever. We could securely say this as the population size has also multiplied over the years and now there are a greater number of women on the planet in comparison to pre 1970’s. Thus we could say that even though there is a larger number of
Photo Credits: Nafisa Samreen TK
women on the planet currently, the percentage of women who don't have any interest in sports has still reduced.
The data also shows the participation based on interest. Only 11% of women who have high interest did not end up participating in any sports, in comparison, over 50% of women who had no interest, kept away from sports completely. For women who had a medium interest in sports the participation level floated between 38% to 45% with 45% of them providing some level of participation, but these women with medium interest also had the most amount of participation at 44%.
Women in India have brought glories to the country and continue to do so today as well. Sports Women like Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Sakshi Malik, Mary Kom, etc are proving to be role models for the coming generations and are paving the way for them to achieve much more in the future.