“Think you know sports? Prove it.”
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“Think you know sports? Prove it.” A very famous sentence said by American actress Sydney Sweeney in her new ad for Novig, a sports betting company exclusively for athletic outcomes, has caused her to face severe backlash from the media. And as a female athlete myself, I think the backlash is deserved.
In this ad, Sydney is naked and covering herself with sports equipment. What she is promoting, according to Novig, is “Just sports,” where Novig uses Sydney Sweeney's naked appearance as shock value to grab the attention of the predominantly male audience.
This ad sparked up a big conversation on the internet since not only female Olympic athletes are replying to the ad, but all women are replying to it. The responders are stating that Sydney Sweeney is sexualising women's sports. Madeline Schizas, a Canadian olympic figure skater, has responded to the ad saying that women are not there doing sports for others to ogle at them.
People are replying in a way that shines light upon how strong, enduring, and amazing women are by posting tiktoks or reels with the text: “Sydney Sweeney, THIS is what women in sports look like.”
All women are expressing that the issue is bigger than just an ad. How far has society truly come in valuing women not for their body but for their athletic performance if one ad can set it all back?
Women often face way more criticism than men when it comes to sport. We often hear that doing sports like football or boxing will make us masculine and that boys don't like girls with a lot of muscles. They also get paid a lot less. A male D1 athlete, which is a college level athlete, can earn 1.5 to 20 times more than a female D1 athlete does.
Picture of a woman during golf competition, Paris 1900
The first time women participated in the Olympics was 1900 and ever since then the number has been increasing. And I, as a young woman, couldn't be prouder of my own gender. We have protested to even make it to the competition level. We deserve every single spot, not only in the voting booths, but on the soccer fields, in the boxing rings and on the tracks.
Olympic athletes say that while the ad is a step back from all the progress women made, it is also a step forward by pushing out this message that “This is not something that we endorse at all,” and showing people what women in sports really look like.
To end this article, I want to quote one of my favourite athletes, Bree Rizzo, an Olympic sprinter:
“There is so much more to women in sport than how they look. It's about their strength, skill, dedication, resilience, confidence and everything they are capable of achieving.”
The next time someone tells you that you run like a girl or play like a girl, don’t take it as an insult. In fact, take it as a compliment, because women in sports have fought for years to prove themselves. We continue to prove ourselves. Women in sports matter.
Writer: AlmaDesigner: IdyllistEditor: Emily
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