Women in Sports

List of content

1. Abstract

2. Introduction

3. Findings

3.1 Most popular sports activities for females

3.2 Benefits for women participating in sports

3.2.1 Good for health

3.2.2 Social Benefits

3.3 Barriers to women's participation in sport and physical activity

3.3.1 Shortage of time and child care

3.3.2 Cultural Barrier

3.3.3 Lack of money

4. Conclusion

5. Recommendations

6. References

Women participation in sports

1. Abstract

It is clear that various factors have affected for declining number of female participant in sports. The sporting organizations have to consider about the situation and forward necessary steps for improvement of involvement of women in sports.

The report investigates the reason behind declining number of women participant in sports; describes advantage and factors that affect women doing sports.

2. Introduction

It has been a long time women are participating in sports despite of numerous barriers based on gender discrimination. However, men play a dominant role in sport till today. Women are frequently segregated involuntarily into different types of sports, events and competitions specifically targeted to women.(UN, 2007) Now-a-days, in Australia, the number of women participating in sport has continuous to increase in different sectors of sport.( see fig 1). The importance of doing sport has been well understood by women and most of them choose to do various sports in their daily life in order to maintain health and physics.

One of the community sporting organizations in Australia is not satisfied with the number of women's participating in their club so they want to increase the women's membership which is beneficial for the company in long term. The report investigates about women's participation in sport and proposes useful recommendations. The report also identifies reason why many women are not participating in sport. All data which is used in findings, conclusions and recommendations are based on governmental websites.

3. Findings

3.1 Most popular sports activities for females

Fig. 1

The graph shows ten most popular sports and physical activities for adults in New South Wales in 2007. According to this graph, the most popular sport for females is walking, as the figure arriving at 39%. After that, females prefer to join aerobics/fitness and swimming in their leisure time, 24% and 14% respectively. However, there are little women like touch football (3%). For other categories, the percentages are almost the same with the data around 5% to 7%.

3.2 Benefits of women participating in sports

3.2.1 Good for health

In terms of sport, exercise plays the significant role which most likely helps women lose weight and keep them away from obesity, yoga and other fitness equipment will also almost certainly improve flexibility of women's body and give them beautiful look which will probably feel them more confident. According to Vic Health, physical activity decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly coronary heart disease, lowers blood pressure, decreases the chance of developing Type 2 diabetes and raises levels of good cholesterol. (Senate, Canberra, 2006). Women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and lower levels of depression. Hence, it is very important for women to do sports in order to overcome health problems and build their confidence.

3.2.2 Social Benefits

According to Jeff Herman (2011), the women will almost certainly acquire lot of social benefits doing sports in a club or outside. It will help women built more interpersonal