Gender Inequalities in Sports Highlighted and Exacerbated by COVID 19

GENDER INEQUALITIES IN SPORTS HIGHLIGHTED AND EXACERBATED BY COVID 19
Student's Name
Course
Professor's Name
University
City (State)
Date
Gender Inequalities in Sports Highlighted and Exacerbated by COVID 19
Introduction
Women's sport has always been a contentious area of debate, interacting with many sociological theories, including social functionalism, naturalism, feminism, conflict, and symbolic approach. Even though women's participation in sports now has deep historical evidence, roots continue to be seen as masculine (Ogilvie & McCormack 2020; Steidinger 2020; Musto et al. 2017). Therefore, unsurprisingly, women have always struggled to rise to the same level of acceptance, popularity, and financial return in sports as men (Hyre et al., 2017; Hargreaves & Anderson, 2014). Hence, sports have always been surrounded by a sense of gender inequality.
However, women had seen a significant rise up through the glass ceiling, as their participation in sports significantly grew over the past decade. However, this uptrend met a substantial roadblock as COVID 19 brought all outdoor activities to a standstill (Evans et al. 2020; Byers et al. 2021). A close investigation reveals that COVID 19 has not only exacerbated gender inequality by causing women to lose comparatively more working hours, engage in household responsibilities at a greater level, experience greater precarity of contracts, and receive lower salaries; but it has also spotlighted the gender inequality underpinned by structural, symbolic, and conflict-oriented norms.
Main Sociological Analysis
COVID had a multidimensional impact on women's ability to participate in sports. Since women have always been subject to restrictions and constraints, the wave of conditions in the wake of the pandemic was massively disconcerting. In response to this, Dr. Ali Bowes, a sports sociologist, hinted at the possibility that women are likely to "walk away" if the situation persists (Morgan 2021). She further pointed out that COVID 19 has only highlighted the hidden aspects of gender inequality in sports (O'Reilly & Abeza 2020; Morgan 2021). It shows that the women in sports are constantly afraid of getting their careers cut short.
The threat that COVID 19 has brought women in sports and the fears that they entertain indicates that inequalities are structural and long-existence rather than a pandemic product. A variety of research works and media reports reveal that women had long suffered financial constraints, harassment, lack of media coverage, and several other deterrents that were unknown to the men's world of sport (Antunovic 2018). In a recent survey, 66% of UK women footballers reported having experienced gender discrimination (BBC 2020). As COVID 19 brought about barriers where even men athletes are no exception, women are understandably worried about their careers. Their fear is rooted in the fact that they were already trailing well behind despite their participation being on the short-term rise before the outbreak of COVID 19. Hence, a sense of inferiority is undetachable from women's sports. This sense gives them reasons to be more concerned than men in a situation where even their superior counterparts struggle to make a comeback (Bo...