Women can actually be sports fans, too

Being a woman in sports, whether as a fan or as a player, is unnecessarily difficult. Women face an entirely different treatment than men, in unequal pay and training, fan merchandise and acceptance as a sports fan or player.

I became a sports fan in high school watching the NFL on Sundays with my dad and sister. It never really interested me as a child, but sitting down and watching a few games quickly changed my view. As a longtime football fan, my dad had a few shirts and hats that he would wear on Sundays, which prompted me to look into getting some merchandise for myself as well. This is where I ran into a problem.

The amount of quality options for women is significantly low compared to the amount for men. This problem increased as I became a fan of Formula One, where most of the options for women were “unisex,” which means they most likely fit men better than women. This doesn’t even include the problem with women’s college and professional sports teams, which are constantly out of stock of any fan merchandise and significantly lacking variety.

The prices are also too high for the lack of options and quality. College students cannot afford to spend lots of money on expensive sports gear, and when they do I believe that they should have choices that fit their style.

This is even true at the Miami University campus store, Brick & Ivy. If you look at the online store, you will see there are four pages of men’s merchandise for under $25, compared to 10 items on one page for women under $25. This is an obvious reason why college students, who usually work for their own spending money, choose to not shop at the campus store.

A suggestion I have for Miami sports fans is to go to the Makerspace in King Library, where you can embroider hats or shirts for your team like my friends and I did when we couldn’t find good options online.

Another difficult part about being a women’s sports fan or player is the questioning and quizzing we receive. Many men, upon hearing a woman is a sports fan, will start to quiz her on crazy history questions that one cannot possibly know off the top of their heads. Why are women not allowed to be fans of sports without being questioned?

When writing this article I was told, while talking to a classmate, that it was surprising I actually like football. This shocked me because just as I was writing about sexism in sports, I faced a real life situation that continued to fuel my anger against people who ask those kinds of questions to women.

Women represent 45% of NFL fans according to Forbes, and if they were to leave the fanbase the NFL would lose a lot of income. According to the Wall Street Journal, women are also more likely to support smaller, niche sports and are very important to the success of the sports industry.

Women are an integral part of sports and should not be treated as if their presence as fans or players is surprising. Likewise, the same effort that is put into men’s sports merch needs to be put into women’s because they deserve equal and fair treatment in all areas of sport.

Women are a part of sports, whether people like it or not, there are a growing number of fans who are just like everyone else, passionate about sports, and should not be constantly questioned or made to feel different because they are female.

mchenrvg@miamioh.edu

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Venezia McHenry is a first year double majoring in journalism and creative writing. She writes for The Miami Student Newspaper and is part of the Honors Student Advisory Board.