The high-paying, professional sports world is occupied only by men. According to Forbes Magazine, no female athletes are in the top-25 highest paid. At the collegiate sport level, the gender binary is still ingrained in many rulebooks, and a persisting societal notion says only those who were assigned male at birth can be good at sports.
It is time to end this. Both amateur and professional sports leagues should drop gender requirements and actively try to reverse stereotypes that only a certain gender can compete.
There are limited opportunities and little to no monetary reward for non-male athletes.
Even the beloved and successful U.S. national women’s soccer team does not receive near the compensation of their less successful male counterpart. Not to mention both U.S. teams still enforce the gender binary.
This is not a call for relaxed standards in sports recruitment — teams still have economic incentives to get the best talent. But offering all genders a shot to play does not affect a team’s ability to recruit. It gives them more options.
Some people may argue that non-male athletes will never possess the talent to play in a competitive, profitable league. Even if they’re right, why not give everyone the opportunity to try out?
People may claim the removal of gender barriers would kill non-male sports, but given the lack of market for these sports in the status quo, this argument does not hold well.
There are no legitimate reasons to deny any motivated person the opportunity to pursue their passion.
