FEMUNPLUGGED4

The host of the radio show "Feminism Unplugged" introduces Dr. JC Abdaal as a special guest to discuss gender in sports. They discuss various responses received on Instagram about whether women's sports are treated unfairly. Dr. Abdaal explains the chicken or the egg question regarding revenue and viewership. They also discuss the popular women's sports, mentioning track, volleyball, soccer, and basketball. Dr. Abdaal emphasizes the importance of normalized sports and the need for more opportunities and recognition for female athletes. They conclude by noting the progress that has been made in recent years. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the WCC radio station. You are listening to Coastal Carolina University student-rand radio station. My name is Ella, and I am the host of Feminism Unplugged. Today is sadly the last day of Feminism Unplugged. I know, super sad. But we do have a very special guest with us who is currently on the move. We have Dr. JC Abdaal with us, whoo, which I will let him introduce himself once he comes back from giving somebody a key. We are going to be talking about gender in sports today. Very interesting topic. I took a gender in sport class. It was really interesting. But Dr. Abdaal is very knowledgeable about this stuff, so do you want to say your little introduce yourself? Hi. I'm Dr. JC Abdaal. I'm an assistant professor here at Coastal Carolina University. My specialty and my expertise is in sports communication. I do a lot of stuff on identity. I do a lot of stuff on team identification, fan identification, things like that. Why are people fans of their favorite team? And I'm very excited here today to talk to Emma. Yeah, this is very exciting. My last Feminism Unplugged show, and Dr. Abdaal was my professor, freshman year, so it's like a full circle moment. Full circle. Full circle right now. But I'm also very excited to announce that Feminism Unplugged did win Women in Gender Studies capstone of the year, so that is really exciting as well. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. Did not expect that one, but here we are. So I'm going to skip it to the song Dangerous Woman by Ariana Grande, and we will be back to start talking about gender and sport. We have some prompted questions and lots of feedback from students, which Dr. Abdaal I don't think has seen. No, I did send you it. I'm a liar. He has seen it, but we haven't seen it in a second. It's been a while in coming, so yeah, I'm skipping now. Welcome back to WCCU radio station, Coastal Carolina University student-ran radio station. My name is Emma, and I am the host of Feminism Unplugged, so I have Dr. Abdaal here again with us today. He gave a little nod over, you can talk. All right, anyway, we are talking about gender and sport today. Basically, the other week on Instagram I did ask for input about a few questions, so I'm going to read off some of the responses. Dr. Abdaal, you can kind of take them, and I know you've already looked at them, but just reiterating them again, because it's been a few weeks with our technical difficulties. But yeah, so the first question that I asked on Instagram, and we're going to talk about it in this segment, is that, do you think women's sports is treated unfairly by the general population? First response was, absolutely. While there have been more viewers this March Madness, they don't allow them to be athletes. They have a heated moment, and they need to calm down, even though most male athletes react the same, if not worse. I will also say these responses were put into an Instagram box, so some of the grammar is kind of like shortened down because of the workout. The next response was, yes, the negative stigma around them doesn't bring in enough views, which then decreases revenue, which then means they don't get paid, same as men, which is just sad. Like, the hype needs to be turned TF up on women's sports. Next one, difference in trends in media. There was something on TikTok with female versus male gifts for the Olympics. We also have, yes, I think they are unaware of the differences of pay regarding athletes. And last one, yes, women in sports are not highlighted or recognized by the public as much as men. Women in sports are held to a higher standard, and more is expected of them from the get-go. So those were some of the responses that I received on Instagram. Thank you to everyone who responded. That was some great input. Dr. Abdalla, how are you feeling about this question? How are you feeling about these responses? Yeah, so I think a lot of them hit on a lot of the key points that are really important to talk about and think about. In my class, Intro to Sportscom, I always talk about, you know, it's always the chicken or the egg question, where it's like, does women's sports not get the revenue because they don't get the viewers? Do they not get the viewers because they don't get the revenue? And a lot of it is kind of this back and forth between that. But I think in the last 10 years, 10, 15 years, I think it's changed, and certainly in the last five, it certainly has changed, and I think there's a lot of inequities that come along with men and women's sports that, again, a lot of people don't necessarily think about. If you go back to high school or middle school and think about, you know, were the facilities the same? Were the trainers the same? Were the coaching staffs the same? Were the opportunities that were given to those athletes the same? And most likely, that answer is going to be either no or definitely not, you know? And I think it's one of those things where it kind of seeds itself relatively early in an athlete's understanding of the game and understanding of the institution around the game itself. And I think it just perpetuates later and later on. You deal with college, you're dealing with professional leagues, you're thinking about what's going on, you know, Olympics and things like that. I think you see a lot of inequities when it comes to that. And I think certainly while it is getting a little bit better, I think there's certainly a lot more that we can do with it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I'm going to kind of go into the next question because we're just going to do it. We're just going to roll with it. So, the next question I asked on Instagram is, what do you think are the top three most popular women's sports? Got a bunch of responses. Soccer, cheer, and volleyball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball, volleyball, soccer, and softball. Something of this sort. Gymnastics is up here. One or two basketball, tennis, all that. I forget what the ones I said to you were. I want to say it was probably, I did mention track. I did do that. Yeah. So, those were some of the responses. Do you know what the most popular sports are? Track. Track? Yeah. Okay. There's a lot of track athletes. And I think part of it, I think this actually kind of leads into our last question where it's like, why are there a lot of female athletes who are track and a lot of it has to deal with, well, you can't really be unequal or unequal with resources and things like with the track. What is a track? What is track? You need a track in order to run track. So, there's not necessarily really that much of a difference when it comes to the different gender in sports when it comes to track. So, I think that's one that is often pushed towards young women in sports who are interested in sport. I think the other sports that we had talked about, those are generally thought of as normalized female sports, right? You can think about volleyball, soccer, in essence, especially in the United States. Outside of the United States, internationally, soccer is popular for everybody. But particularly in the United States, it's kind of an interesting viewpoint when you're dealing with soccer because of there have been, obviously, the women's team, the women's national team is much more successful and have been more successful than the men's team here in the United States. And I think the understanding of the game of soccer has definitely improved in the last 25 years. When you go back to the 1999 World Cup, with the women's national team winning the World Cup at that point, I think that was a humongous watershed moment for a lot of athletes, particularly those who are my age. When they won the World Cup, I was in kindergarten. And I think when athletes are starting to become interested in sports, when athletes are starting to play sports, it's around that time, too. And so I think having those media examples of women who were able to rise to the challenge and win the World Cup, again, very hard to do when you're dealing with other countries that maybe develop those types of athletes a little bit more. And I think you're definitely seeing somewhat of a rise when it comes to participation rates in those types of sports. But again, I think soccer is a huge one that I think a lot of people may think of. Basketball is always going to be there, and I think we all know that. Same thing with softball. Again, it's one of those things where what are the sports that we often play when we're kids? And oftentimes, female athletes are kind of pushed to play those types of sports, right? So volleyball, basketball, track, soccer. And I think the aspect when it comes to that is, again, it's you play what you know. And if you know those sports from a young age, I think those are the ones that you're going to play more, and those are the ones that you're going to be more apt to play. And I think that that is an important thing to remember. Again, it's what is normalized in society. It's not necessarily normal. It's what's normalized, right? What is kind of ingrained in our head as to being this thing that people do. And I think that you're seeing changes in terms of what people can play, what people can do, in terms like that. But I definitely think that it's still, there are certain demographics that may feel one way or the other about it, and unfortunately, that demographic is the one that is in power in terms of making decisions about what to do and what not to do. If you think about media executives, again, you're thinking about TV, you're thinking about broadcasting deals, you're thinking about these things. But again, there's a lot of improvement that is going on, and I think you're definitely seeing those things now, especially, again, in the last couple years, they've been really accelerated as well. So I think you're seeing a lot more opportunity, and I think you're seeing a lot more, you're seeing a lot more exposure and visibility to those types of things. So I think that that's becoming more of a, I think it's becoming a good thing, and I think we'll see it. I think we'll see it continue to improve. I always like to say, too, normal is just a mindset. Yeah. I mean, that's what it is, right? You're looking at it from society, and you're looking at it from the, what is normalized in a society, right? Yeah. And I think that, again, you're looking at that, so. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, we are just about out of time for this segment, so we're going to move it into a few songs. We may skip around with some of these songs, so just stay tuned. We're going to chat more about this in the next one. Bye. Bye. Let's begin. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to WCC Radio Station. You're listening to Coastal Carolina University Student-Rand Radio Station. My name is Emma, and you are listening to Unplugged, and if you are just tuning in, we have Dr. J.C. Abdallah with us today. We have been talking about some gender and sport questions. Super interesting. He's very knowledgeable about this stuff. Okay. So, basically, the last segment, I asked him, or, well, wait. Hold on. Rewind, everyone. I asked Instagram these questions, and then I've also been asking Dr. Abdallah his opinion on them. So, the last segment, we ended off with the, what do you think are the top three most popular women's sports? And then he kind of touched on this question, but I do have input about the question from Instagram and your guys' responses. So, I asked, when you think of a woman-dominated sport, what makes you think that? So, we can always go back and touch on it if you have anything to say about some of the responses. Some of the ones I got was, I think more females participate than males, or I think more of girly sports. Girly was in quotations. Cheerleading slash gymnastics simply because they don't show as many male athletes in these. Gymnastics may be a female-dominated one if you think of anatomy, woman equals bendy, or what they had in schools growing up. They had some sports just for girls. Another one was because it is seen as girly. Less physical contact, tight uniforms, high expectations. And the last response was, the only female-dominated sports that I can think of are gymnastics, cheer, and dance. I only say that because they aren't socially acceptable for men, and that's the only reason they're female-dominated. Yeah, so I think those are really interesting responses, and I think that they are certainly true when it comes to, again, what do we think is normalized? As a personal example, when I was in high school, I was in the marching band. I played Barry Sachs for three years, and then my senior year, I wanted to do something different, and I ended up becoming the first male color guard member in my high school's history. And it was a very interesting aspect of thinking of being in a dominated field that was, at that point, exclusively women, and being in a situation where I felt like I was an outlier. And I think it's made me understand and understand the feeling of an outlier in terms of gender a little bit more because, again, of my experiences that I had when I was in color guard, it was one of those things where, again, it's like if you don't understand somebody else's struggle or you don't understand somebody else's understanding of the situation, I think it definitely impacts your understanding of the situation. So I think, again, it's one of those things where a lot of people are thinking things like gymnastics, things like cheerleading, right? But if you think about it, one of the answers was something about less physical contact. Cheerleading has the highest rate of injury of any sport in the entire, of any sport in the United States, particularly in terms of high schools. They're throwing people around. Gymnastics as well. When you're talking about issues of physical contact, you're talking about dealing with injuries, there's an extremely high rate of injuries in those sports as well. So when you're thinking about injuries or physical contact, I think that that is not true. And I think that that is disingenuous. And I think it's one of those things where a lot of people, again, think one thing, but in reality, it's completely different. It's something totally different. So again, it's one of those things where they might be pushed to it, but again, it's one of those things where it's just because it's normalized, that's what they're pushed into. I feel like I've never really thought about it that way either. I feel like in lacrosse, they have different rules about, you know, like certain people can hit in certain sports or whatever, but also then when you look at it like soccer, I mean, soccer is soccer. People are going to get shoved and whatnot. So I think that's really interesting. And soccer has one of the highest rates of concussion rates in sports because of the, again, of the amount of head injuries that occur due to hitting the ball or, you know, not to mention, if you think about it, there's no protection. There's no protection on the head. So it's one of those things where you are going, if you're going to get hurt, you're going to get really hurt because again, it's, you know, those sports are conducive to things like that. So I think that's something. Or hockey too. Hockey again. Hockey again is one of those things where, especially in the Northeast, the Midwest, I think the sport of hockey is growing in the other areas of the United States. But certainly in those areas, if you're from that area, if you're from those areas where hockey is a big thing, you know, certainly I am, certainly you are. It's one of those things where you recognize and understand that there's still a lot of risk that goes along with it. And the physical contact aspect of it I think is, again, something that we think is true but not necessarily going to be true. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's really interesting. Because then I feel like it's one of those like stereotypes that are so normalized that you don't really understand it. And I guess the question was like, you know, basically what are said stereotypes that make you think this way? So I think it's really interesting that they brought up that point because at the end of the day, sports are going to be sports. There's going to be physical contact. Yeah, we're not playing chess. Yeah, yeah. We're not playing chess here. And you never know. Chess can get pretty intense. That can be pretty intense. So, you know, it's one of those things, again, I think it's something that is really important to talk about and things to think about. And I think, again, the understanding is going to come from the exposure and the media exposure. So I think, again, it's dealing with media exposure. And I think media exposure is an important aspect of understanding the game and understanding that, hey, it's sports. It's not, you know, it doesn't change. I mean, maybe the rules change a little bit for one way or the other. But let's be honest here. It's going to be sports. It's going to be physical contact. Sports are sports. Let them cook. That was a very good response. So, yeah, I'm glad we kind of went back to that question because, yeah, a lot more to it. I mean, honestly, if they put us on here all day, Dr. Abdal could probably talk for, like, how long do you think you could actually talk about this topic for? I mean, sports is my life. Sports is his life. I do. I'd give it, like, six hours. Yeah, I could talk about it for six hours. Yeah. All right, well, I'm going to send to the next song. We're going to play Taylor Swift, Willow. We're going to skip over Fifth Harmony boss. We're not, I love Fifth Harmony boss, but we're skipping her today. So, yeah, stay tuned, everyone. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. So, hi, everybody. I am so sorry. Welcome back to the WCC radio station, Coastal Carolina University student-run radio station. I forgot to turn the mics on, so we started talking. So sorry, everyone. But this is Feminism Unplugged, and my name is Emma. I'm here with Dr. Abdallah. This is my last time ever speaking on the radio station for the foreseeable future. We're going out with bang. So back to the question that we were talking about, Dr. Abdallah, you're very big into sports, always have been. We don't see that changing in a hot second. So how have you seen change in the last couple of years in interest in women's in sports, and how do you see the future of this? I would also like to mention, too, gender and sport we've been talking about on the binary today, just to preface that. So yeah, how do you think it will change in the future, past, all that jazz? So I think the biggest thing that I have seen in the last couple of years is the interest in non-Olympic sports. The non-Olympic years, Olympics is, you know, the Olympics is a spectacle. The Olympics is something that is really, something that has really improved in terms of the viewership and being able to watch it. And again, with streaming and everything, you're able to watch as many competitions as you want to. So I think the interest for the Olympics is certainly there. And I think that because the interest in the Olympics has been there, I think people are starting to be interested in the non-Olympic sports in the non-Olympic years, which, again, is one of those things where you're talking about just generating interest. And I think it's super important. I think in the last couple of years, you're seeing, you know, the 2024 March Madness tournament, the women's tournament, was one of the, it was the most watched women's tournament of all time. The WNBA draft that just happened this week pulled in, like, two and a half million viewers, which is the most that it's been for about 20 years. It's one of those things where I think you're starting to see a lot more of the interest in it. And I think the other thing is, too, is I think a lot of people are starting to understand, you know, women's sports, again, you know, you have these female athletes who work four times as hard for a quarter of the recognition, and I think it's one of those things where you are starting to see what is normalized and how it is normalized. So, again, it's one of those things where you're seeing it more and more. So I think it's, I definitely, definitely think that it is a positive thing right now, and I think it's going to be seen even more positively. The PWHL, the women's hockey league that is, the professional hockey league that is starting to grow in popularity, the Minnesota team sells out 10,000 seats almost every game. So I think you're going to start seeing that more and more in terms of recognition. You're going to start seeing that more in terms of media coverage, and I think you're going to start seeing that in terms of fan interest. And I think that it is, the future is bright, and I think that we will get to a point where, of course, inequities are always going to be there, but we're going to get to a point where it's no longer a, it's no longer a, where people think of it as an inconvenience or something that is lesser than. I think that people will see it as something in terms of equal footing. And I think, I'm hopeful for that. You know, we can all be hopeful, right? But I think in the next couple years, especially in the next couple generations, we'll definitely start seeing that. I love that. It gives us something really beautiful to leave the last segment on, especially just in life, hope, hopefully see changes in the future, X, Y, Z. Hope is all we can hold on to. What is that quote, or something like that? I don't really know. Something like that. Along those lines. But as you can kind of tell, we're going to wrap up the episode here, which is really disappointing. This was my last ever show, so I just want to thank everybody. And if you did just start tuning in, I mentioned in the beginning that Feminism Unplugged did win Women and Gender Studies Capstone of the Year. Congratulations once again. Thank you. Thank you. And everybody who gave input should be proud of that, too, because it wouldn't have been as successful as it was without the input from students. I hope you all learned a little bit more from Feminism Unplugged, as well. I've had a lot of fun doing this. This was my fourth semester doing a show here at WCC radio station. So, I don't know, it's kind of, it's been a journey. It has been a journey through the WCC radio station. Dr. Abdallah, I want to thank you very much for your input on today's show. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, and much appreciated. Yeah, I feel like you definitely brought some new insight into the show, especially having that, like, sports comm background, as well. Very much appreciate you being here today. Thank you. It's been a long time coming. Absolutely. Yes. All right. Well, I hope you all have a great, wonderful day. This is Emma Yocum signing out of Feminism Unplugged and the WCC radio station for the last time. Goodbye, everybody.