As the spring semester begins and the stress of class weighs down on people’s shoulders, at Silver Creek one way students relieve stress is by watching or playing sports. A variety of different sports are available to both boys and girls including: tennis, basketball, baseball/softball, and more. Games provide a sense of school spirit and excitement, but the noticeable differences between the boy’s and girl’s teams are deserving of acknowledgement and attention.

Throughout history, sports have been a mainly male-dominated field. In March of 2019, the US women’s soccer team sued the US Soccer Federation on account of gender inequalities. This case was eye-opening for many, and revealed the truth of pay gaps, uniforms, and privileges given male sports teams. According to Encyclopedia.Com when the Olympics first started, it featured only male sports. Once female sports were included in the National event fame, recognition still primarily focused on the male athletes.

Another example of inequality in athletics is that according to Online Adelphi male NBA Basketball players make about $8,321,937 whereas the women make a significantly lesser amount of $75,181. These statistics suggest that society believes that female athletes work less at their athletic careers and achievements. Why is their pay so different? This wage inequality is not limited to the NBA, and is also found in all other sports played by both males and females.

Looking around anywhere seeing the disadvantages women face in the athletic industry, even in high school teams is obvious. Travel, funding, and spirit are just a few areas in which women’s and men’s teams differ.

Silver Creek’s womens and mens game attendances are drastically different. Many girls’ teams get very low amounts of student attendance to games in comparison to the men’s teams that get a much larger turnout. This lack of participation and support for the girl’s teams causes less funding for them from an effect of low ticket sales. Social media for the school largely represents upcoming boys’ games and encourages reposts on Instagram stories and attendance whereas the girl’s games are rarely re-shared and just generally spread throughout, affecting the lack of presence of students.

“For Softball, if you get one student there that is like so exciting for all of us,” Senior Basketball and Softball player Ashley Gaccetta stated.“For basketball, it’s about the same too…everyone will show up for the second half of the girls game just so they can reserve a spot for the boys but none of them are ever really attentive.”

When asked about the overall success of the SCHS Raptorette’s Dance Team with regard to the privileges they lack Freshman member Jordan Randal says “I think that if we had more funding, recognition and opportunities given to us [like] the funding the other teams have we could do better,” referencing championships, student recognition, and the amount of members on the team.

The result of different opportunities presented to female teams makes joining these teams less compelling when compared to men teams. If your peers won’t support you, it dramatically affects the overall mindset of the athletes and team as a whole. Sports teams with fewer privileges and opportunities experience more of a drawback than teams with many players and a history of competitions and benefits. It’s harder for the girl’s teams to thrive when they are not presented with the same chance as the boys.

The Differences in funding can also be seen in things like travel or games. “Our bus down to Colorado Springs didn’t even have the heat on it, and it was in freezing weather…and then the boys got almost like a party bus…the boys always get the nicer buses compared to girls,” Stated Gaccetta. This also brings light to the contrast in attention for fundraising in regard to the male and female teams.

It is apparent that female teams are not provided with the same recognition or opportunities as the male teams are. As a school, being united in spirit and support is important in order to promote pride in the female teams in addition to the males’. Women deserve the same recognition and support as men for their hard work, and athletic triumphs. Gender shouldn’t affect support.