Today is the National Day of Girls and Women of Sport. The hashtag is a trend on Twitter, and social networks are inundated with photos and stories of women who are crushing and winning names in the sports industry. Women in the industry are sharing about their journey in the sports world, as well as flashback photos of them as children in a variety of team uniforms and sports equipment. Some are posting advice and even reaching women who may one day want to pursue a career in sports to send DMs for advice.
For each photo of a woman dressed in business attire holding a microphone in a field or court, and for each tennis woman holding a camera, and for each woman with a cell phone, posting on the official team’s social media – for each one of these posts, there are also posts from women counting the times they were harassed by a co-worker or asked to do something that was not in their job description. For every woman who posted her success, there is a woman who has moved away from the industry she loved and never looked back because she felt she didn’t belong there. Each story of triumph and perseverance also has a counterpart of pain and unfair treatment.
There have been some great stories in the media recently about women in sports being harassed or treated inappropriately by their male colleagues. These courageous stories are drawing attention to what almost all women in the sports world have experienced personally, but what many men are unaware of.
In honor of Women’s Day and Girls in Sport, a clip from Portland Trail Blazers, Damian Lillard was posted on social media. The Portland guard talks about how men who want to discredit women in sports should “step back and reevaluate themselves.” He says: “Women in sports are often overlooked, undercompensated and we don’t have to live this reality.”
He’s right.
I was very lucky, as a woman in the sports industry, to work with really great people here at Blazers Edge and in my other sports ventures. Even though I am surrounded by encouraging men who really support me, I have stories. Most women in sports have them – an interaction that didn’t feel right, an inappropriate DM, a text message that crossed the line. Most of the time, these things are not commented on. They are pushed aside and ignored as the women who deal with them begin to guess our clothing choices and the photos we share on Instagram. We take a longer way to get where we are going or do what we can to avoid dealing with a man who has bothered us in a place where we belong. For all time, sports have always been a world dominated by men – in players, in the support team and in the media. But women are making moves and filling roles that we didn’t have access to before, bringing a new perspective and a new voice to the table.
Women belong to the field and the court. They must be behind a camera doing filming and images, and they must be in front of it too: doing analysis, interviewing players and talking about the sports they love. Women belong to a keyboard, reporting games and telling stories. They belong to radio rooms, podcast studios, training facilities and the bank in coaching roles. Women belong to sports.