Gender discrimination is seen in each and every sport, within any age group, regardless of the league or competitiveness. As one of the world’s most renowned sporting goods company, Nike decided to take a stand and show everyone “just what crazy can do”.

In Nike’s new “Dream Crazy” campaign, the focus is on the stigmatization of female athletes and the advertisement targets the engrained misconception of female athletes that they possess “emotional weakness”, a certain body image, and “unrealistic goals”. The advertisement has been shared millions of times on numerous social media platforms, and is igniting the fire within female athletes of every age to finally break the stigma and continue to fight for change.

Gender discrimination can be seen by flicking on the sports channel at any time of the day. Have you ever counted the number of men’s sports being broadcasted in contrast to the number of women’s sports? Female athletes receive far less coverage, poorer quality of technological function, and are demeaned as “girls” instead of women, while male athletes are viewed as “powerful” and “strong” men. For example in Germany, women’s football teams used to be banned because there was a belief that women were vulnerable and weak. People thought women’s bodies could not physically handle the demands that football imposed on their bodies. In truth, it was only in 1982 that the first international women’s tournament of football was held, which really is not that long ago in sport history.

The list could go on and on about the historical and continual injurious treatment that female athletes receive in comparison to male athletes. By fostering worldwide awareness of the realities of gender discrimination in sport, there may be at last effective policy changes to help combat these inequalities and discriminatory myths.

alexbonaparte12