Chelsea Gibbs
Finding your voice as a female athlete is not always easy. Being judged no only for your skill but your gender and the way you look is frustrating but its the confronting reality for most female athletes.
Before I could walk or talk I had already developed my love for sport. Before I was 4 I was kneeboarding behind my dads ski-boat, before I turned 6 I was riding my bicycle without training wheels, and when I was 8 I was already swimming competitively and from then on I continued to learn and grow as a female athlete. Netball was the first sport I fell involve with, I loved playing and participating in a team and as I developed my skills I realised hey I’m actually pretty good at this. When you’re young you are blinded by the many challenges female athletes face. On game day I was more concerned about performing to the best of my ability then if my dress was too tight or if I had worn mascara that day. But as we grow older we are often more critiqued on our looks than our sporting abilities.
As we continue to see a larger representation of women sports on our television screens we still continue to see an overwhelming number of negative attitudes towards our female athletes. Research today has found that more than a quarter of all comments directed towards female athletes are found to be discriminative. Social media abuse also targets female athletes three time more than men. 27% of those comments were found to be negative compared to small 9% of comments towards men.
Mostly the attitudes forming around women in sport is highly sexualized but newly found data shows that a lot of the comments are discriminating, belittling women’s sports and tearing down the idea that there is little to no athleticism there at all. More today our female athletes are achieving more then our higher paid male sportspersons. Ash Barty, Australia’s local tennis star, has been the first tennis player in Australia to become world no.1 since Leighton Hewitt in 17 years, Michelle Payne, was our first ever Women’s jockey to win the Melbourne cup in 2015. Elyse Perry being Australia’s only athlete to have played cricket and soccer at professional levels as well as representing Australia at World cups
for both sports. These strong empowered women are the few among the many female athletes that are smashing records through the glass ceiling one sport at a time.