Soccer's Ugly Sexism

Discussion in 'Women's College' started by RtD!, Jun 28, 2017.

  1. outsiderview

    outsiderview Member

    Oct 1, 2013
    Charlotte
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    I agree, I suppose it is just a poor choice in title as nothing she states supports the title chosen.
     
  2. HouseofCards

    HouseofCards Member

    Nov 26, 2012
    Probably not a poor choice in title, it's a click-bait title that will get lots more attention than "I'm not coaching not because of sexism."
     
  3. Collegewhispers

    Collegewhispers Member+

    Oct 27, 2011
    Club:
    Columbus Crew

    This is absolutely BS. How many male 27 year old head D1 coaches are there? She has no idea what a fast track she has into the college game.
     
  4. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Did you bother to read the article (as distinguished from the headline) and the comments about it?
     
    Soccerhunter repped this.
  5. WWC_Movement

    WWC_Movement Red Card

    Dec 10, 2014
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Papua New Guinea
    I wonder when the transgenders will start to complain about not having enough coaches?
    We are moving in that direction now.
     
  6. Soccerhunter

    Soccerhunter Member+

    Sep 12, 2009
    #81 Soccerhunter, Jul 18, 2017
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2017
    Interesting to look at Chris Henderson's ranking of DI coaches.

    It would seem that of the top 30 coaches, 40% (12) are women whereas the overall rate of female coaches in DI is 26.6% (88 out of 330 total DI coaches.) This would seem to indicate that the women are disproportionately represented as the top coaches.

    Then going down to the bottom of Chris's list (#207 to #236), one finds that of the bottom 30 coaches only 6, or 20%, are women, which is below the 26.6% of women in DI coaching over all.

    Then the remaining middle group of Chris's coach rankings (#31 through #206) shows that these 176 coaches have 45 women head coaches for a percentage representation of 25.6% which is awfully close to the 26.6% that the total group represents.

    Does this tell us anything about the overall ability of women coaches to do a good job? It seems to show that women as a group are as good as or are better than men at coaching in DI women's soccer!!

    Cheers!
     
  7. outsiderview

    outsiderview Member

    Oct 1, 2013
    Charlotte
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    You're right, you should send this to AD's and that is how they should hire....C'MON MAN
     
  8. bigwest

    bigwest Member

    Mar 8, 2017
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    TBH, I think this is a Quantity thing. There are more men coaches in the system then there are women. I hope this changes, I really want to see more young women want to step up into the coaching ranks. I think they bring a unique worldview that will help our daughters succeed in the game and off the field. But, These new young women coaches need to put in the effort and want it. I think the problem is, image, this article makes it feel like Men coaches are just given jobs, without having to earn it (maybe they are, but I highly doubt it). I hope we have more involvement from women in the sport in the coaching and AD ranks.. it would be a good thing...
     
  9. Collegewhispers

    Collegewhispers Member+

    Oct 27, 2011
    Club:
    Columbus Crew

    I don't think male coaches get given jobs more easily actually the opposite but I think that aside your post is great. We need more Young women wiliing to invest in the career path and put the work in and we could see a huge rise in female coaches.
     
  10. winster

    winster Member

    Jul 7, 2008
    Club:
    Besiktas JK
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Another article on male/female coaching disparities...it mostly focuses on youth coaching:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...-field-where-men-still-call-the-shots/535167/

    My opinion is that women simply don't want to coach as badly as men do. Actually I would go further than that. Women on average aren't as interested in sports as men are. I don't think anyone would seriously argue that statement, and I think that the overall lack of sports interest directly translates into a lack of coaching interest (particularly at the youth level).

    At the college level you would expect there to be less of a disparity. There are significantly more female college soccer players than male college soccer players. Thus, theoretically there are more girls qualified to take up entry level college coaching positions. Assuming that the girls that make it to college-level athletics are amongst the rare females that actually do care deeply about sports, then we should see a lot more former women's college soccer players entering the coaching ranks. For whatever reason, all the statistical evidence suggests that women aren't even trying to be college coaches.

    Could this be due to sexism? Maybe. I'm sure there are some D-1 athletic directors who let sexism subconsciously affect there decisions. However, it is telling that the article at the beginning of this thread doesn't mention any empirical proof, just some anecdotal statements from some disgruntled women. If sexism was pervasive enough to provide a substantial barrier to prospective female coaches, you would expect some type of hard evidence, and yet there is none.

    In all likelihood sexism poses a very small, statistically negligible barrier to female soccer coaches. Think about it. We are talking about hiring women to coach teams full of nothing but other women. Our instinctive biases tell us that women and not men are best suited for this type of job. For that matter, most hardcore misogynists would probably recognize women as good natural fits for coaching other women. This isn't the sexist Silicon Valley debate over whether women can actually do math and code as well as men, or whether a team of nerdy dudes will listen to a women. It would take some strong and weirdly illogical implicit biases for an athletic director to prefer a male candidate for a women's coaching position over an equally qualified female candidate.
     
  11. William49

    William49 Member

    Nov 11, 2015
    Chicagoland
    That seems to be a fairly common impression, but in truth, the number of male and female college soccer players in the U.S. is essentially the same.
     
  12. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That seems extremely unlikely for Division I. As of 2014, there were 198 DI schools sponsoring men's soccer and 332 sponsoring women's. The men's rosters would have to be really big to even come close to the women.
     
  13. HouseofCards

    HouseofCards Member

    Nov 26, 2012
    This table shows there were actually more male college (all levels) players than female players in 2016.

    http://www.scholarshipstats.com/soccer.html
     
    cpthomas repped this.
  14. William49

    William49 Member

    Nov 11, 2015
    Chicagoland
    Absolutely. At the D1 level, women have the numbers, hands down. One thing that I wasn't aware of until recently is that men's squads do have more players, on average, than women's squads. It's that disparity in roster size across all levels that accounts for the fact that while there are more women's colleges teams, there are more male college players.
     
  15. Collegewhispers

    Collegewhispers Member+

    Oct 27, 2011
    Club:
    Columbus Crew

    Just how many more male players there would be on rosters too if title IX didn't enforce strict regulations on roster sizes at many programs. Usually administrations are great with women's soccer rosters being big due to balancing moves sports such as football. If indeed there are more male than female players in college soccer this shows there is more interest possibly since women usually have the opportunity for a roster spot than men.
     
  16. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Or, if women are going to be on a team, their primary interest possibly is in playing. Whereas for men, their primary interest possibly is on being able to say they're on the team.

    I'm not saying that's actually the case. But it's as good an interpretation of the facts as your suggesting the facts show there is more interest "possibly" in soccer from men than from women.

    Actually, the roster size difference in D1 is ~28 for women and ~29 for men, which is minimal. And, given that there are a whole lot more women's D1 teams than men's, according to your logic it must mean that there possibly is a whole lot more interest in soccer at that level from women than from men.
     
  17. Collegewhispers

    Collegewhispers Member+

    Oct 27, 2011
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Not at all. There are certainly more opportunities for women at the D1 level as there are many more programs but my experience it is more some women who are happy just to be on a roster whereas men seem to usually want to play. Probably why some guys who don't know if they will play at Division I may look at a high end DII programs to ensure playing time. I'm sure this happens in the female game but the difference is your top DII men's programs could compete with a lot of DI teams which isn't really the same on the women's side. I would say men are the ones who aren't as ready to just be on a team.
     
  18. winster

    winster Member

    Jul 7, 2008
    Club:
    Besiktas JK
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    First, I should have said "there are a lot more female NCAA D-1 soccer players."

    Second, I actually think that men are more likely than girls to screw around on a college sports team even though they have no real chance of getting significant playing time. A lot of these guys end up quitting after a year or two, but the only reason there are (slightly) more men college players overall is because of the disparities at the JUCO level.

    There are definitely tons of barely-above-average high school boys players, and random foreign players clogging up rosters at the DIII, NAIA, NJCAA and CCCAA level. NJCAA colleges in particular get tons of dudes through the door by offering 1/4 athletic scholarships to 30 different players, most of whom won't actually do anything for the team. Girls get those types of offers and say "I'd rather just play intramurals or join a sorority at my flagship state school."
     

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