"She shoots, she scores" - Women in Sport

With August being Women's month, we at BrandsEye thought it might be good to have a look at Women in various industries.

In my humble opinion, the industry that seems to have fought the hardest for gender equality (and sometimes it seems like the battle still continues) is that of the sporting industry.

As a male, doing a bit of research into this has been very enlightening. What I think many of the men fall privy to is a terrible attitude of superiority. I stumbled upon a quote that I think captures many a man's view on women and their involvement in sport. The quote is from one of the world's "manliest" men, always recognizable with his white shirt and blue trousers, the man for all seasons, Homer Simpson:

"...girls should stick to girls' sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such."

The sporting industry has changed a lot over time and is now at a place where it is very accommodating to the female gender. Team sports like field hockey, volley ball and football, as well as individual sports like tennis, athletics and golf are growing phenomenally in terms of their participation and popularity - the recent FIFA Women's World Cup was testament to this as it produced some of the finest football I have seen in ages. I had many conversations throughout the tournament with some friends about how it was even more exciting than the men's World Cup.

From a historical point of view, and I found this very interesting, women first participated in their own sporting events in the year 776 BC where they were excluded from the Olympics and as a result had their own event known as the "Games of Hera".

As the years went by there were no noteworthy inclusions of women into the sporting arena, with many achievements only happening on an individual level. Only since the 1700s have proper changes taken place and the rest, as they say, is history. (Here's a comprehensive timeline on the History of Women's Sport)

In my research I decided to identify who some of the top women in sport are as well as some of the top websites on women in sport. The most useful websites I found included Women's Sport and Entertainment Network (WSEN) and ESPN W - this is the ESPN site committed to Women's Sport. Both are an excellent resource if you need to know any of the latest developments or achievements or just general news from the world of women's sport.

Onto some more interesting facts.

Who are the most popular women sport celebrities on the web? Popularity here was based on number of Google searches.

Number 3: Serena Williams - 4 990 000.

Number 2: Erin Andrews - 5 450 000. (Erin is a sports broadcaster)

Number 1: Maria Sharapova - 5 650 000.

(Please note that this article came out in 2010 so these might have changed by now - see full list of the 2010 Top 50 here)

Who is currently the number 1 female sports star?

Two time winner of the Laureus Award for Female Sportswoman of the Year goes to Olympic skiing sensation Lindsey Vonn. "Vonn's third consecutive overall World Cup title gave her the top honour over high jumper Blanka Vlasic and tennis superstars Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and Caroline Wozniacki".

Greatest Female Sportswoman of all time? As is always the case, this will be debatable, but I stumbled upon a list with someone whom I have never heard of topping the list and after reading the little write up on her I thought to myself: "This lady is someone to admire." Track and field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee definitely seems to have made a tremendous mark on the world of sport both on and off the field.

So I will end this post by saying respect to all the ladies who work hard to reach their dreams. You deserve more recognition from your male counterparts. Thank you for setting great examples on and off the field. Don't let me inspire you, here is a quote from a legendary lady:

“Girls playing sports is not about winning gold medals. It’s about self-esteem, learning to compete and learning how hard you have to work in order to achieve your goals.” — Jackie Joyner-Kersee, member of the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and three-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field.

GH