March 8 marked International Women’s Day around the world, a day meant to commemorate women’s fight for equality and liberation, focusing on issues such as gender equality and violence against women.
One of the many battles being fought is equality in male-dominated fields such as sports. Recent research from Canadian Women & Sport showed that over 90 per cent of sports media coverage in Canada focuses solely on men’s sport, and less than fifteen per cent of sports reporters in the US and Canada were women.
Shireen Ahmed, credit to TMU
However, progress has been made in recent years, particularly in how women are redefining their presence in sports. The notion that women can’t be both feminine and athletic is being strongly challenged.
“You couldn’t be sporty and be feminine at the same time and we’re seeing this incredible pushback, whether it’s nails or lashes, lash extensions and hair done it’s beautiful. You can exist as you are and how you want to be and femininity is strong” said Shireen Ahmed, a multi-platform sports journalist and senior contributor to CBC Sports.
Rachel Brady, a sports reporter from The Globe and Mail believes that much of the problem with equality in sports stems from considering women as ‘role models’ instead of athletes “Quite frankly I can’t think of the last time Austin Matthews was asked about being a role model for young boys. Bardy adds that “the focus should really be on their performance on the pitch and what they can do”.
Beyond the importance of increasing the number of sports reporters being women, Ahmed adds that we need to see a variety of different people filling the gap when it comes to sports storytelling, “it’s really important to have trans reporters in addition to everyone else, you know, queer reporters and people from different communities.”
Despite her position Ahmed has faced discrimination and negative commentary for her work on trans athletes “The media hysteria about this is distracting people from abuse in sports, lack of equity in sports and so many other things”
Regardless of the pushbacks Ahmends remains committed to her fight in advocacy “We need to be a little more uncomfortable in Canada than we are and we tend to placate ourselves to think that we’re great, but racism and homophobia, anti-Semitism, transphobia don’t stop at the border.”
Data from Canadian Women & Sport also revealed that 2 in 3 Canadians are fans of women’s sport, eliminating the premise that Canadians aren’t interested.
The real issue, according to the data, is the inequality in media coverage. As Ahmed states, “One of the beautiful things about what we do is that there can be a place for everyone.”
