Women's sport is increasingly present in the media and in society, but it still has a long way to go to get the recognition it deserves. Also in Spain, where the most popular athletes are still unknown by a large part of the population.
The study carried out by the company IO Research to analyze the knowledge and perception of Spaniards about discrimination against women in high-performance sports reveals that 50% of Spaniards do not know who Alexia Putellas, captain of Barça and considered the best soccer player in the world after winning the Ballon d'Or and FIFA's The Best award last year.
Of the more than a thousand people surveyed last April that the sample collects, more than half (53%) do not know the name of Simone Biles either. The American gymnast, one of the great athletes of recent times, with 19 world titles and 25 medals (four gold in Rio 2016 and one bronze in Tokyo 2020), also made headlines in the last Olympic Games when she gave up competing in cause of an anxiety problem.
At the same time, the survey indicates that three out of four Spaniards consider that elite women's sport is discriminated against, and 80% believe that men are more responsible for this situation than women. Despite this, the vast majority (90%) trust that these differences between men and women in the world of sport will be reduced in the next five years.
The solution to end this discrimination would happen in part by offering greater visibility of women's sports in the media. Almost 80% believe that it would contribute to having more followers to put a face and name to the most illustrious of the moment.
The Spanish government's Ministry of Culture and Sport launched this year the 'Equals in Sport' project to "make diversity visible and end discrimination against women", the LGTBI collective and athletes with some type of disability.
Regarding the existing salary gap between male and female athletes, 81% of the population sees it as unfair. According to the latest list published by Forbes magazine on the highest paid athletes (income in general), the difference between the highest paid athlete (Roger Federer) and the highest paid (Naomi Osaka) is almost 60 million euros (about 68). What's more, the sum of the salaries of the 10 highest-paid athletes is 16% of the entire sum of the income of the top 10 men, according to Forbes figures.
Most of those surveyed agree that the difference is not only monetary, but that female athletes face more value judgments than men and outdated norms that sexualize them. 77% of the responses agree that women who practice sports professionally face more value judgments from society than men. 76% also believe that the fact that there are sports that require women to play in skirts is a way of sexualizing them.
