An associate professor spoke about gender inequality to a large crowd of students and faculty concerned about serious inequality in the worldwide realm of sports.
Cheryl Cooky, an associate professor of american studies and women’s gender and sexuality studies at Purdue University, spoke in the Marty Theater on Monday night. The main focus of her presentation shed light on three chapters from her book called “No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change.”
Cooky started off the evening explaining that although in four decades women’s sports had come a long way, the journey was far from over. She briefly highlighted the issue of boys and girls being in separate leagues, some girls being left behind, girls quitting sports at higher rates than boys and men being more likely to coach both boys and girls while women serve as simply “team moms.”
The three chapters she highlighted in her slideshow presentation were lack of media coverage, sex testing in sports and women, sports and activism.
Cooky explained how media coverage, collected from five year increments from 1989 to 2014, while showing graphs and statistics that not much had changed during that time. A statistic collected during March Madness showed men’s basketball main coverage on Sportscenter received 83 stories for a total of 2 hours and 21 minutes, while women’s main coverage received eight stories for a total of nine minutes.
Some students were concerned with the difference in statistics.
“I am a big fan of sports, so I learned that there’s a lot of data that’s skewed in favor of men’s sports versus women’s sports … more so than I have had noticed before,” said Emma Smith, a junior nursing major.
Then, Cooky explained the history of sex testing, when it meant a woman had to strip naked and walk across a stage in front of a panel of men to deem she was in fact a woman.
She then transitioned to the case of Caster Semenya who was under suspicion after her successful win in the 800-meter run at the World Championships in Berlin back in 2009. Cooky explained how the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations’ concerns of testosterone limits were arbitrary.
Finally, she ended the presentation with words of encouragement.
“Women’s sports [have] come a long way in four decades, yet equality and fairness are not a done deal,” Cooky said.
Some students took what they learned and applied it to Bradley’s own athletic program.
“I knew the equality was pretty bad in sports, but I didn’t think it was that bad,” Reaghan Wharff, sophomore journalism major, said. “Men’s basketball games are at the Peoria Civic Center, where women’s is at RenCo. The amount of people that show up is really sad and we need to put more effort into making it better and more equal for everyone.
