By Paola Diaz ’19
“We feel like we’re treated like second-class citizens because they don’t care as much about us as they do the men,” explained the American professional soccer player, Carli Lloyd while being interviewed for a CBS News documentary.
In 2015, the United States team won the FIFA Women’s World Cup while playing against Japan with a score of five-to-two.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup was founded about 60 years later than the FIFA World Cup, which was founded in 1991 and 1930 respectively.
Similarly, the NBA champion this year were The Golden State Warriors, but the Seattle Storm team from the WNBA won during this year’s WNBA Women’s World Cup too. Do as many people know about the WNBA Finals winners as they did about the NBA championship winners? Could there possibly be more attention drawn to male sports than female sports?
Does Pritzker make the same mistakes or do we give every team equal attention?
Do Pritzker athletes themselves notice a difference in attention?
Israel Chairez, a senior and member of the varsity boys’ basketball team, explained, “There is totally a difference in skills with guys and girls basketball, but in my opinion, I believe we get treated the same. We both lace our shoes the same way before practice, and we both practice hard; Therefore, so we both get the same amount of recognition.” He also explains how in the first 17 minutes of practice, the team completes an Insanity workout, and then they move onto conditioning. “[conditioning] because it is only the start, but I’m sure, as we progress into the season, drills will change,” adds Chairez.
Eduardo Roman, a senior and a member of the varsity men’s soccer team adds, “I actually thought [the varsity girls’ soccer team] got more attention than the boys’ team. The girls showed better group-based results with them winning almost every year for the past 4 years. The boys didn’t really have anything to defend, but this season we felt a change. We felt the potential to win it all, and the outcome came positively to our side.” Roman explains how most of their practice time was dedicated to drills because “the sport requires a lot of group-based actions.”
But what about co-ed teams? Is there different treatment between male and females that are in the same team?
Varsity cheerleader and senior, Priscilla Bueno explains how, in cheerleading, everyone is treated the exact same. “Males and females are held to the same standards,” explains Bueno. Everyone in the team completes stunts and practices jumps. Both males and females end up practicing the same routines. So is attention only given to the teams who have shown strength through winning championships or is it all depending on gender? Overall, some members of sports teams at Pritzker claim there is equal treatment in bot
