Girls Are Just Not Cool Enough…

Ethan Lee
Co-Sports Editor
Men traditionally dominate sports, and most women teams tend to trail behind the well-known, more popular men’s teams. In newspapers and other forms of media, most coverage of sports focuses primarily on the success and failures of the men. Women leagues and associations don’t nearly attract the same attention. According to ESPN, the National Basketball Association draws a daily average of 1.7 million viewers on national television. The Women’s National Basketball Association attracts a mere 413,000 viewers. This drastic difference is shocking and begins to raise questions concerning gender equality. Is the level of play between men and women that different, or is it more socially acceptable to attend a male competition? This conundrum not only exists in professional sports, but also at our very own school: the Latin School of Chicago.
At Latin, sports games have become more of a social event than an athletic competition. Junior Kara Bank believes that “people tend to go to games where they’ll be able to hang out with their friends. Sadly enough, it’s more likely that there will be more people hanging around at boys games than girls.” If people don’t attend matches for the love of the game, what separates and causes people to want to “hang out with their friends” at male competitions? History teacher and head of Men’s Alliance, Mr. Fript, asks, “Men, in general support men’s sports.  If the NFL or the NBA had to support itself on women attendance, they would go broke. So if men don’t go to see women play, perhaps we can understand it, but why don’t women support women’s sports in greater numbers?” Junior Kunal Koppula believes male competitions “have more intensity. People like to see aggression and determination, which is more commonly found in guy’s games than girls. People want to see blood.” Male sports may have more intensity and testosterone, but aren’t winners defined by their success? Isn’t it more exciting and thrilling to watch a winning team compete? In the past few years, the Latin Varsity Girl’s Basketball team has consistently been an ISL powerhouse, whereas the Boy’s Varsity team has not done as well. Yet, at the DePaul and Loyola games, more people come and support the boys basketball team than the girls. Junior Ashley Henderson thinks “it is considered ‘cool’ to be at the boys game. The girls game, despite being a mere hour prior, isn’t considered ‘cool’ enough to show up.”
Games at Latin are social events. Being a smaller school, Latin doesn’t have the same “religious” tradition of supporting all the sports teams as the larger schools do. Sports are taken less seriously, and people rather enjoy it leisurely with friends. Junior Kate Bowker agrees: “Guys games tend to be more of a social thing and attract a lot of attention and get a lot of hype. I don’t know why it’s not the same way for girls!”
When you think about it, basing your decisions according to social acceptance and recognition is pretty sad. As a seemingly close community, Latin should support both sexes equally. The attendance of Latin sports are a microcosm of professional sports as a whole. Ultimately, it is divided between the two genders. If we can set an example as leaders and support both sexes equally, these athletic (or social events) can be considered “cool” no matter who is playing.]]>