Good Sport

In the fiercely competitive world of sports, girls are often overlooked and underserved—how can we set them up to be "good sports" while confronting pervasive gender inequality?

Words by Sarah Rafiqi | Photos by Rebecca Aranda

Last November, Archer’s Director of Athletics Kim Smith stood in the balmy San Diego air to watch the 2023 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) semi-final match. Although the sun was just beginning to set, the court looked brighter than ever—and not just because of the wattage of Snapdragon Stadium’s lights. A record-breaking mass of 32,262 soccer fans came to watch the match, selling out the stadium in a crescendo of cheers. Amidst the crowd, Smith felt a familiar energy in an unfamiliar sight. It was a scene she could only have dreamed of in her years as a professional soccer player.

In many ways, the NWSL finals represent how far women’s sports have come in the last few decades. The NWSL itself is only 12 years old, younger than most Archer students. Before that, there was no professional league for female soccer players in the U.S. The growth of women’s sports—including soccer—can find its roots in Title IX, a landmark civil rights legislation in 1972 that prohibited sex-based discrimination in any federally-funded school or educational program. Prior to Title IX, only 1 in 27 girls played sports. That number has now grown to 2 in 5 girls who are actively participating in sports today. These stats have a cascading effect on collegiate-level sports. According to a recent study by Wasserman, one of the world’s leading sports talent agencies, there is a near-equal number of total Division I competitions across men’s and women's college sports due, in part, to Title IX. However, there is a significant drop off at the professional level. Women’s sports represent only 8% of the total professional competitions played in the U.S. Moreover, whatever collegiate and professional women’s games there are only get 15% of media coverage compared to comparable content availability, up from 5% in 2019, according to Purdue University’s study, “One and Done The Long Eclipse of Women’s Televised Sports, 1989–2019.”

There is also a gap between the experience of female athletes and male athletes. Serena Williams, for instance, is one of the most decorated athletes of all time, yet that hasn’t prevented her from battling double standards. She is consistently judged for her outfits and called a “bad sport” for her attitude while male tennis players rarely answer for such things themselves—a timeline of William’s double-standard treatment is listed copiously in a 2022 article by Marca, Spain’s national daily sports newspaper. Moreover, despite her numerous accomplishments, she is not regarded as highly as her male counterparts. During the Rio Olympics in 2016, an interviewer referred to male tennis player Andy Murray as “the first person ever to win two Olympic tennis gold medals.” Murray quickly pointed out that, no, the Williams sisters already held four gold medals each.

These double standards contribute to the gross lack of pay equity across the spectrum of sports. In October 2023, Adelphi University published a salary comparison of male and female athletes across a variety of professional sports. One of their findings was that in 2022, the world’s highest-paid male athlete, Lionel Messi, made $130 million, while the highest-paid female athlete, Naomi Osaka, made $51.1 million. They also found that in the 2022-2023 season, the maximum salary of WNBA players was four times less than the minimum salary of players in the NBA. That same year, the FIFA Women’s World Cup Champions prize equaled only a quarter of the Men’s World Cup Champions prize.

Considering the growing interest in sports among girls, it is fair to question why there is such a big discrepancy between youth participation and professional representation. One place to start is off the court. According to research from The Conversation, there is a dearth of sports research on female athletes. Their report found that most participants in sports psychology research studies are male. Across sports psychology research conducted between 2010 and 2020, men and boys made up 62% of participants, of which 22% of studies examined only men. For reference, only 7% of studies specialized in women. Since these studies are used to inform performance strategy, the lack of research equity can negatively impact women and girls, causing them to feel defective. American runner and coach Lauren Fleshman’s autobiography, “Good For a Girl,” discusses the damaging effects of comparing female athletes to the standards that are set for male physiology. She notes that “when puberty isn’t talked about except in damaging myths, a natural and essential process is viewed as a threat, something to fear or grieve, and there is significant motivation to bypass it somehow.” This leads female athletes to be unhappy with their bodies and often drop out altogether. Fleshman specifically points to the damaging physical and mental health consequences of menstrual dysfunction and the restrictive eating habits of girls attempting to freeze or reverse puberty. Moreover, a 2015 article in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that 51% of girls aged 13-14 reported that their breasts had some effect on their participation in compulsory sports and exercise. While the report was UK-focused, it’s not hard to imagine girls around the world may be facing similar discomfort. Additional studies in The Conversation show that female athletes have more significant symptoms of mental ill-health than their male counterparts. Considering these statistics, it’s unsurprising that The Women's Sports Foundation states that, by the age of fourteen, girls in the U.S. are dropping out of sports at twice the rate of boys.

Gender biases in coaching and public sentiment also have a chilling effect on girls' participation in sports.

According to the Women’s Sports Foundation’s April 2019 report “Coaching Through a Gender Lens: Maximizing Girls’ Play and Potential,” “Both boys and girls perceive boys as having superior sports skills and associate being an athlete with being a boy. Communities, schools, and parents devote more resources and invest more in supporting boys’ participation.” These messages are not always overt. In an excerpt from a Global Sport Matters article, Marjorie Snyder, WSF’s senior director of research and programs, says, “It’s not just an individual action or behavior that affects the girl. She gets an entire set of messages, and then she puts the story together herself.”

These internalized messages about body image discomfort and the inherent masculinity of sports can be exacerbated by material inequities. Lack of access to sports facilities and equipment, lack of female role models in sports media, and lack of funding can all reinforce messages that sports are not for girls and women. The results speak for themselves. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations’ High School Athletics Participation Survey, 3.4 million girls participated in high school sports compared to about 4.5 million boys in the 2018-2019 school year. The Aspen Institute’s State of Play found that in 2018, 39% of boys aged 6-12 played sports regularly, while only 31% of girls did. Studies by WSF and Project Play show these stats drop even further for girls of color. Similar results have been found in studies conducted in Australia, Canada, and England. To combat these trends, there should be an emphasis on tailoring coaching to girls. The State of Play reports that only 27% of youth sports head coaches are female, even though they are key to girls’ participation and retention. In this regard, Archer is fortunate to have Kim Smith. Her personal experiences in professional sports lend a keen perspective to her role overseeing all athletics at The Archer School for Girls.

Smith grew up playing club sports with the support of her mother, a marathon runner and competitive rower, and her father, a four-sport college athlete and Olympic qualifier in track in the 400m. As an undergraduate female soccer athlete at the University of Virginia, Smith had to contend with a lack of resources. “In college, we wore…the handme-down men’s uniforms that were massive in size; they weren’t fit for our bodies. We had pre-games in the men’s locker rooms, as we did not have a proper locker room with a whiteboard and stereo system.” At the time of her graduation, there were no opportunities for women to play soccer in the United States, so Smith made the decision to go abroad. She played one season for the FC Wins in Honjo, Japan, where the stadiums were bare, and the experience was isolating—as one of three English speakers on the team, Smith relied on a translator. From there, she transferred to FC Saarbrucken in Germany, where there was no excess money, so all players had to hold jobs to subsidize their soccer careers. Finally, she moved back to the States in the late 90s to play in North Carolina and then Sacramento in the semipro W League, as there was no professional women’s league at the time. While players had small stipends for travel days, the money was not sustainable, and so again, Smith had to work to support herself and her dreams. Since retiring from playing, Smith has pursued coaching. In this role, she sees how influential the early years of a girl’s development can be for her confidence in sports.

Smith asserts that it’s important for girls to feel seen, heard, valued, and safe in their training environment. The research supports this experience. WSF’s 2018 “Teen Sport in America: Why Participation Matters” report advises “identify[ing] ways to adjust the culture, composition, and operations of sports to make them more accepting of girls.” To Smith, this means tailoring coaching to both the physiology and mentality of girls. She says firstly, girls need to have “proper facilities to be able to develop as athletes.” Then, they need “opportunities to compete…so they get to learn more about themselves and to grow.” The coaching approach also needs to be tailored to how girls learn. “Girls, they need to know the why. [They need to know] how does this fit into the context of the game. [Also] how feedback is given: leading with positivity. It’s very different [than coaching boys].”

Smith is proud to see that female soccer players now have “incredible opportunities” to not only pursue their dreams but also make a living off of them, far more than when she was a player. Yet she recognizes that there is still a long way to go and that this change often happens haltingly. Take soccer, for instance. Since Smith retired from the sport, there were two unsuccessful attempts at creating a professional league before the NWSL was created in 2012. Smith doesn’t see these short-lived attempts as failures, though. “Even though they folded, they were stepping stones,” she says. This is the pattern of growth towards gender equality in sports: small accomplishments that build on each other over time.

The same pattern can be seen in tennis, another sport that has made considerable gains for women in the past three decades. When Serena Williams retired in 2022, she had won $94.82 million dollars over the course of her career, according to Statista. Compare this to the $1.9 million Billie Jean King earned after winning 39 grand slams and retiring in 1990, as calculated by EquityAtlas. The disparity in prize winnings is not a happy accident. It was King’s advancements that paved the way for Williams.

In 1973, King empowered other players to boycott the U.S. Open unless they could get equal pay. The move worked. It was in part because of this strategy that tennis is now the leader of pay equity in sports. Smith asserts that similar strategies can still be used today to demand equity, including equal pay and media coverage. She believes it is imperative that female athletes understand the business side of sports so they can advocate for themselves–and for each other. “That’s the only way. Female athletes have to band together and work together. and that’s where the power is to be able to create change,” she says. This includes being savvy about partnering with investors who will stand by their commitments.

It also means communicating to media conglomerates that there is profitability in women’s sports. There is a common misconception that female athletes are paid less because they have smaller audiences and receive a smaller share of media coverage. However, there is evidence of deliberate pay disparity. In 2019, Forbes reported that NBA players received 50% of the league's revenue while WNBA players received only 25% of their league’s revenue. Certainly, leagues could negotiate more equitable contracts with their female athletes. Evidence also supports that the disparity in audiences results more from a lack of access than a lack of interest. A study in The Sport Journal found that exposure to women’s sports changed attitudes. The results of the study indicated that showing participants highlight reels of women’s sports “decreased prejudice towards female athletes.” Currently, a trend of nontraditional sports viewing is pushing forward these attitudes. The aforementioned Wasserman study reports that increased social media and streaming consumption among Millennial and Gen Z audiences is driving the increase in media share for female athletes. Due to increased access, female sports games are seeing record attendance in basketball, soccer, and volleyball.

This shift was on full display at the NWSL semi-final match, where a sold-out stadium cheered for a cohort of players taking the ball from their predecessors and kicking it “down the line” to the next generation of girls aspiring to become women in sports. Archer is here to help these young players make that goal. As Smith asserts, Archer plays an important role in guiding this next generation into becoming the leaders they need to be to say, “I’m gonna go for it, I’m gonna be brave,” and ask for what they need, not just to be good, but to be great.