WOMEN+IN+SPORT

Are female sporting stars in your country given the same opportunities as men? If not, what problems does this cause for women who want to take up sport?

//the rule is that if you upload material in French, for example, you must give a short summary in English too, in order to allow others to understand your point and use it :// //this comes from a Breton sportswoman blog : 2010 was supposed to be the Year of Women in Sports : have you heard much about it (as much as about drugs in the Tour de France for example ?// //WHY ???//

**By Karen Sofie, Norway:**
I believe that the main reason why female sport carachters aren't that famous has a very natural explenation; they are supposed to give birth, and that is as natural as it can bee. Many female athletes find it hard to keep up their sport career after having a baby.

I don't know how this works in other countries, but in Norway a bigger part of the students at universities are women. Many young girls choose to give up sports and choose education instead. I think that a bigger part of young male athletes invest in their sport.


 * By Karolina, Norway:**

I think that the reason why women's sports are less popular than men's, is that women are less competetive. I also think that more men watch sport than women, what could also be a reaseon for less women's popularity. Strength and athleticism are attributes which are much more important in societies assessment of men than they are for women. There are some types of sport which are more suitable for women, such as figure skating or dancing. These types of sport are suitable as well for men as for women, but however there are more female ice skaters, than male. Personally, I am not so keen on watching sport matches,either it's women or men that are playing, but if I had to watch a football camp, I would definitely choose the one where men are playing. If it would watch figure ice skating, I would choose to watch the one where women are skating. This is just the way it is, women are not so competetive as men, therefore the majority of people like to watch men playing matches. Some types of sports are more tailored to women, while other types are more suitable for men.

By Sofie & Tanja, Denmark:
==I can for sure say, that women does not get as much attention as men, when were talking sport. But opportunities, I think so, at least in Denmark. Ofcourse they aren't the big footballers, not on TV. Maybe in some private teams. Tour De France is for men. But there is also a Tour De France for women, it's just not as famous as the one where the men is the stars.==

By Chloe,England:
==﻿Women in sport aren't given equal oppertunities to men. For example, we often watch men playing football on the T.V- but where are the women's teams? There are many out there that clearly aren't seen as 'good enough' to appear and play in public. Perhaps this is the influence of the media. It is seen as unfeminine to do sport because they portray the perfect woman to be beautiful and dangerously skinny effortlessly (through airbrushing.) This makes other women who don't fit the requirments of the ideal woman feel inferior about their bodies and therefore not want to take part in sport. This can lead to a range of problems like obesity as girls don't feel comfortable doing sport in public so they get very little exercise. I think it's important that society overcomes these issues with women involved in sport so many women can feel confident about their appearance and not feel pressure to be a stereotypical woman, not involved in any sports, but be themselves. ==

By Barbara, France
====**Female sport isn't as famous as male sport. Why ? I think you don't really care about it because of the "no-broadcasting" of any football matches or others. People (mainly men) think that women can't do sport as well as men only because they're women ! It's unfair. Women have capacities which are different of men, and there place in sport is as central as the men one. Why don't we never heard of them during any female competitions, although they've got the same role and get so much medals as men... People discover female sport during the Olympic Games, and forget it right after... When a woman wins a race or something else, some people have doubts about her sexual genre. Do you remember Caster Semenya during the Olympic Games in 2008 ? She won a race and her appearance makes her looking like a man...**====

**I think the problem stays in the mentality of the major part of people.**

 * [|An article about Caster Semenya]**

By Robyn, England
==**Women compete in virtually all sports,however sexism is still present in the sporting area. This may be due to the social change where women feel liberated to practice a sport traditionaly for men,therefor it isnt taken seriously. Europe is supposed to support equality in every area of life but women's sport isnt seen equally to men's. Recently a sexist incident occured within british football, a female assisstant referee's skills were mocked because of her sex. She had a lot of experience in football and was one of the three top-level female officials in england however because she was a woman her skills were debated, she proved her ability by getting a marginal offside decision correct! Should this behaviour be tolerated in society?**==

Written by Michelle Ambros, Germany:
==In my sports club, the SV Neuerburg, I cannot see any differences between male and female players as far as promotion of the youth is concerned, but whenever we have a match you can easily see that the female teams do not attract as much audience as the male teams. In general the male team has more spectators than the female team. We can observe this fact with small clubs, like the SV Neuerburg, but also with matches of the national league or international games. That is not only true in handball - I am a handball player myself - but also in football, volleyball, table tennis or tennis. == ==On a higher level, association level, you can see even more differences. The male teams have more sponsors than the female teams. The female teams play in smaller stadiums than the male teams. == ==On TV, for example in the daily news they give you reports and films about men and sports. You can watch hardly anything about women and sports. If you are lucky they give the result of a match but not much more. There are exceptions though, for example biathlon, swimming and athletics. == **The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2011 took place in Oslo from 23 February to 6 March 2011. The event included 21 competitions within Cross-Country, Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined.** Here is an excerpt from the program of events of **Friday 25 February:** **15:00 Ski Jumping: Normal Hill (HS 106) Individual Ladies.** Information on __[|http://www.oslo2011.no]__ The Ladies do ski jumping, but it is not an Olympic discipline yet. Maybe it will be an Olympic sport in Sotschi 2014! ==In advertising you can see men only. In Germany there is for example advertising for NUTELLA, the most famous bread spread, or for a well-known snack called “Milchschnitte” – with men only. == And now to the money that women earn in football e.g. Kim Kulig, she has 1.500 Euros a month. If a woman has 60.000 Euros a year, that is already a lot of money. But this is nothing for the male football players. Players like Michael Ballack, Raúl, Frank Ribéry or Mario Gomez have millions a year. So I think the women are disadvantaged (see: salaries) compared to the men and there is a lot of discrimination (see: ski jumping). There is the Women’s Sports Foundation that leads the fight against discrimination and works toward gender equity in sports. You can get information on the net: __[]__ You can get information about the history of women in sports on: __[]__ Latest results are on the women’s online sport magazine: __[]__ ==There was an excellent report about “Female heroes in male domains” published by the German newspaper FAZ.NET, March 8th 2011 (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, original title: “Heldinnen in Männerdomänen. Frauen, die sich was trauen.“ See: __[|**//http://www.faz.net///**]__ ==

By Marjorie; France : I think that countries sho <span style="color: #2981a8; font-family: Georgia,serif;">﻿ <span style="color: #00b0ff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">uld set up matches to compare mens and womens just to prove they can play at their level; <span style="color: #00b0ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">It would be interresting ... <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">♀ ♂

**By Hannah, Norway:**
In my opinion, women have the same opportunities when they're young, but when they grow up they can't live of the sport like men could do. They have to make a living and decide to quit and educate themselves instead. Popular sports are often played by men, but some popular sports are played by women. The spectators and the public decide e\what kind of opportunities the athletes get.

By Harry: England