“I understand that our teams don’t make as much money as football and basketball,” says Sage Ohlensehlen, captain of the women’s swim team at University of Iowa and lead plaintiff in a class-action Title IX lawsuit against the school. “But we trained just as hard and we have just as much love for our sport. We deserve to play just as much as any other athlete.”
Category: Sports
Using Sports To Address Taboo Topics—Like Sexual and Reproductive Health—in Tanzania
To address staggering levels of teen pregnancy in Tanzania, two global nonprofits are using the tool of sports to address taboo women’s sexual and reproductive health issues.
Salute to Women in Sport: Champion Skiier Lindsey Vonn on Why Athletes Are Change-Makers
Ms. spoke with alpine ski racing champion Lindsey Vonn about her work to increase opportunities for women and girls to get involved in sports.
We Heart: What Do Sports Pages Look Like Without Men?
Katherine Burgess always found media coverage of her female athlete inspirations to be lacking, to say the least. So she decided to call it out.
Burgess, who is a graphic designer, has created a series of visual representations of this gender disparity in sports reporting, which she’s shared on social media.
Q&A: Abby Wambach on Finding Your “Wolfpack” and What To Do When “the World Is on Fire”
Soccer superstar Abby Wambach spoke with Ms. about the new young readers edition of her bestselling book, “Wolfpack.”
While Praising the NBA Strike, Don’t Forget How WNBA Players Paved The Way
Headlines last week portrayed NBA players as the activist leaders in the sports world and reduced WNBA players to mere followers of their male counterparts’ actions.
But on the whole, the WNBA has consistently and collectively been on the forefront of social justice issues for years now.
Women’s leadership—particularly Black women’s leadership—in the WNBA is too often left out of headlines about activism in professional sports.
“We know what it was like to stand up, even against public opinion.”
Tools of the Patriarchy: The Money Tool, and the Persistent Wage Gap
The wage gap has plagued the U.S. since women entered the workforce. And while money, definitely, is not everything—it is infused into the way we live. As long as our society functions in a capitalistic manner, our work can and will be valued with a dollar amount.
This means we must fight until women are earning every last cent as much as men make.
Education and Title IX: Back to “Separate But (Un)equal”
Despite its success, Title IX remains under constant attack, with rules and enforcement depending on which party controls the government.
Single-sex education has sprung up in the majority of states in violation of Title IX.
In addition to being against criminal law, sexual assaults are a violation under Title IX. The Trump administration has dealt enforcement the biggest setback in decades.
“Little Wonder”: Lottie Dod, World’s First Female Sports Superstar
Sasha Abramsky’s new book, “Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, The World’s First Female Sports Superstar,” chronicles the life of Lottie Dod who broke new ground in the realm of women’s sports.
We Heart: WNBA Players Walk Off Court to Support Breonna Taylor and #SayHerName
Team members of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm and New York Liberty walked off the court before the National Anthem began—signifying the teams’ solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and specifically how they stand against the police brutality that lead to the killing of Breonna Taylor.
“All season long, we say her name.”