While there has been immense progress in the world of sports in relation to the ways in which women are included and represented, misogyny in sports remains ever-present today. The different discourses, actions and ideologies present in sporting environments continue to contribute to, reinforce, or normalize the objectification, degrading, shaming, and/or absence of women. Basketball in particular has been affected by the patriarchal society we live in; female players are constantly held to a lower standard than their male counterparts, paid a drastically lower salary,  granted fewer athletic scholarships, and constantly overlooked by the mass media. Men’s basketball continues to prevail over women’s basketball, overshadowing the accomplishments and equal representation and pay the women deserve. This page serves as an introduction to a thorough analysis on misogyny in Women’s Basketball, particularly in the contemporary realm of attention to “March Madness.”

The history of the hostility of misogyny and patriarchal ideologies of our society need to be addressed in order to understand the persistence of gender inequalities within sports today. In 1891, the sport of basketball was created by a Canadian sports coach, James Naismith. The rules and regulations he came up with were later adapted by Senda Berenson to create the women’s version of the sport. The sport picked up much attention and admiration from women across the country; the new addition meant a step in the right direction for them. The first intercollegiate game took place in 1896 between Stanford University and UC Berkley. Men were intentionally excluded from the game by the female players and fans as a way to assert their commitment to creating a atmosphere for women in sports. Other schools followed suit and started to offer basketball for their female students.

While milestones were being made by individual schools and outside organizations, like the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), other external groups and organizations continued to fight against fair and equal play unfortunately; they saw the inclusion of women in basketball as a harm to society, specifically the patriarchal society that was in full swing.  

In 1972, the federal law, Title XI, was passed. It claimed, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Therefore, federally-funded schools became required to fund women’s sports equitably, which included teams, scholarships, recruitment, and media coverage. A few years after Title XI’s passing, the Olympics committee, inspired by Title IX’s impact, made the decision to include women’s basketball in the Olympics as a legitimate sport, not just as an exhibition event as it was before. 

Athletic scholarships became available for female athletes for the first time starting in 1973. At this point, men athletes had already been granted athletic scholarships for a few decades.  Men athletes had already been defined as profitable investments due to the attention they drew from fans, potential students, alumni and outside donors. They were granted the privilege of athletic scholarships earlier on than female athletes due to the prestige attached to their athletic capabilities. Such prestige lives on today since the gap between the number of scholarships allotted to female athletes verses male athletes remains present. In 2014, it was recorded that male athletes still receive 55% of NCAA college athletic scholarship dollars (Divisions I and II), leaving only 45% allocated to women.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), was founded in 1910. The non-profit organization is responsible for regulating athletes of North American institutions and conferences. In 1982, 43 years after the organization sponsored men’s basketball, the NCAA announced its inclusion of women’s basketball. The first NCAA national tournament was hosted that same year; the tournament became known as March Madness and picked up tremendous hype. However, even until this day, the men’s March Madness tournament continues to receive much more attention from fans and media outlets. As of this past tournament, on the NCAA website, men’s basketball was three times as likely as women’s basketball to be the lead image on the home page, and more than twice as likely to be featured in the top headlines. 

In 1996, the Women’s National Basketball Association, also known as the WNBA, was established as a counterpart to the NBA; it was marketed as a “companion,” even as a “little sister,” to the men’s league. Despite its initial perception as a inferior companion to the NBA, it was an exciting moment for female collegiate players who wanted to continue their career after college and receive the recognition they have worked so hard for. The WNBA started to receive television deals from ESPN and ABC Sports; in 2003, the league signed its first deal with the two channels, which led to coverage and, therefore, consumption of their games by outside viewers. Their television deals started to grow over the years as the league gained more popularity and success. As ESPN continues to support and cover the WNBA, there remains a clear difference between coverage of the NBA and WNBA. The NBA takes priority over the WNBA; it is more frequently covered and much more accessible. In addition, WNBA players’ looks have been subject to unnecessary commentary within its accompanying media coverage. The ways in which the WNBA has been covered in comparison to the NBA speaks to the persistence of misogyny in sports. 

This website begins by explaining the roots of Women’s College Basketball, in the NCAA, and the Women’s NCAA “March Madness Tournament.” Preceding this beginning, a closer look at the actual coverage– on paper and on television– is laid out, since media coverage contributes to the inequalities in the sport. The site also tracks the path from the college basketball sphere to the WNBA as a woman, as the discrepancies between the NBA and WNBA make news headlines. A timeline encompasses the history and future of women’s basketball, further illuminating the gender inequalities that exist between men’s and women’s basketball.