Written by: Jaylin Hardin | Sports Editor, Libby Thoma | Staff Writer Gender disparities are common in the world of sports. Female athletes are generally broadcasted less, paid less and pitted against others disparaged in the weight and size category. This problem is international and does seep its way into Western — although Western is better about these disparities than other schools and professional sports. One issue within the sports world is how limited professional sports teams have been for women. The first professional men’s sports league was Major League Baseball, founded in 1869, after the Civil War, with its first team being the Cincinnati Red Stockings — now the Boston Red Socks. The National Football League — NFL — followed suit in 1920. The United States eventually joined the Federation Internationale de Futbol and founded the National Basketball Association, known as FIFA and the NBA respectively, in 1930 and 1946. Women’s sports, on the other hand, did not have the same starts or even advantages as their male counterparts did. For a period of time during the forties and fifties, there was the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was created over concerns about Major League Baseball’s viewership during World War II. After this period, women’s golf became popular, and is currently the longest-running women’s professional sport — the first Women’s Professional Golf Association Tour started in the 1950s. In June of 1972, Title IX was passed, which prohibited discrimination based on sex or gender. From this point on, women began to get a leg up in, not only education, but also athletics and other federally funded programs....
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