Why is women's sport still the butt of the joke for insecure men?

A locker room, a phone call, a gold medal winning team and a President. 

Missed the story? This Guardian article covers the situation well, if you'd like to get your head around it before reading on.

I mean, I don't think any of Donald Trump's behaviour should be looked upon as representative of the wider population, either in the US or across the world. He is, at best, a senile, dementia-ridden, almost-Octogenarian who has lived a life free of repercussions for his bad (illegal) behaviour. At worst, he is a racist, homophobic, sexist, thieving sex offender who threatens to kill anyone who disagrees with him. His comments about the US women's Olympic ice hockey team should be disregarded; it's the reaction of the some of the men's ice hockey players that bothers me. Call it "locker room talk" or "nervous laughter", but surely we're way past the point of making women's sporting achievements something to laugh at?

I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but women's sport has grown exponentially in the last 4 years (at least here in the UK where I'm based). A home European football championship, won by the hosts (England) saw the likes of Leah Williamson, Jill Scott and Lucy Bronze become household names overnight. Domestic women's football went from half-filling small community grounds to selling out stadiums. A new women's rugby union league was set up (for which I designed the branding). A female athlete won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award four years in a row. Over in the US, Caitlin Clark became a nationwide superstar in college basketball, whilst the NWSL and WNBA signed dramatically larger media deals. More recently, Alyssa Liu's winning figure skating routine at the Winter Olympics became the viral moment of the competition, catapulting her to global fame.

The facts and figures prove it too.

• Women’s sports revenue grew 4.5× faster than men’s between 2022–2024.
• Average attendance at women’s sports events rose ~55% from 2021 to 2024.
• In the UK alone, women’s sport reached 44.7 million viewers in 2024, the most ever.
• Coverage of women’s sport has jumped dramatically (roughly 275% growth in five years).

Of course, like any fast growing market, there are still teething problems. Pay gaps persist; the FIFA Men's World Cup in 2022 awarded the winner $42 million, whereas the equivalent women's competition in 2023 awarded the winner a quarter of that at $10.5 million. Whereas, since 2007 all 4 grand slam tennis tournaments have awarded equal prize money to men and women, showing that it can (and should) be done. Media disparities are also still an issue, with men's sports continuing to receive larger broadcast deals, more sponsorship spending, higher advertising rates, and bigger production budgets. Even with huge broadcasters getting a slice of the women's sport pie (Disney Plus becoming the home of the Women's Champions League and DAZN showing the inaugural Women's Champions Cup for example) there's still plenty of room to grow the broadcast market for women's sport.

Pay gaps and media deals endure, but they are showing steady signs of improvement. The biggest problem that women's sport still faces is perception. Donald Trump's wet-fart of a "joke" aside, you only have to visit the comments section of any article or social post to see how females in sport are still seen. These can be split into 3 types of comment:

The "they're not as good as the men" type comments are the most prevalent. On a talkSPORT Facebook post celebrating the England women's second Euros win, one man commented "Is there anything more embarrassing than a woman's (sic) penalty shootout?". Yes Dave, your grasp of the English language. 

Next is the archaic and hasn't-been-funny-since-primary-school "get back in the kitchen" comments. On a Reel recorded at the Women's Champions League final in 2025, a delightfully braindead looking man named Andrew commented "Double housework x" (the kiss is a nice touch Andrew, but I'm not sure any of the winning team would touch you with a bargepole). 

Finally, and my least favourite, is comments sexualising the athletes or commenting on their bodies/appearance. One example of a comment on a social post by footballer Alisha Lehmann reads "I've heard her p*ssy smells like Surströmming". A very insightful thought there from @devil.femmes who in writing this comment proves to us all that he (because let's be honest, it's a man) has never been in the presence of a human woman.

These types of comments, and this attitude, appear to be going nowhere. As female athletes gain success, admiration and respect from one part of the sport audience, they seem to inspire anger, disgust and ridicule from another. We can blame it on the gammon-faced, middle-aged, Daily Mail reading, Carling swigger with egg from his Wetherspoon's breakfast down his top that we picture in our minds when we think of this type of attitude, but the problem is wider spread than you might imagine. In a 2023 study which surveyed 1,950 male football fans, 68% showed openly misogynistic attitudes towards women's sport, whilst 8% showed "covert misogyny" (acting progressive publicly but harbouring misogynistic views in spaces seen to be safe). Some men even stated that women should not be allowed to play certain sports, sticking to more "feminine" ones. Rhythmic gymnastics and competitive knitting it is then, gals! 

The key point is that this study showed that misogynistic attitudes exist across all age groups of fans, challenging the idea that it's only the more "traditional", older male sports fans who have these opinions. Researchers described the pattern as potentially a backlash to the growing success of women's sport, which harkens back to FIFA banning women's football in 1921 when its popularity began to exceed the men's game. (Side note: I'd urge you to watch the documentary Copa 71 if you haven't already).

But why is women's presence in sport so threatening to men? None of these women's sports are designed to replace the men's version. All they do is offer a wider selection of teams and athletes to support, watch, and talk about, broadening the sporting landscape for fans with an ever-growing hunger for content. As a life-long Arsenal supporter, it's frankly brilliant to have two teams to follow, ensuring that my calendar is always full of match days and games to watch. I don't view the two teams as separate entities; they both represent my club. 

I can only deduce from all of the research I've looked at and stats that this prevailing attitude comes down to one thing, and that's insecurity. Donald Trump is the poster child for male insecurity, having built his presidential career on self-inflating (and easily disprovable) lies, and the window his conversation with the US men's ice hockey team gave us into the types of conversations these men have when there (seemingly) aren't any women around really demonstrates the fragility of their egos and the juvenile level of their humour. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that justifies viewing women's successes in sport as inferior to men's. They still beat their peers, they still topped that mountain, they're still the best in the world at what they do. 

So while Donald is forcing his third Big Mac of the day down his gullet, let's all say a collective congratulations to the US women's gold medal winning ice hockey team, as well as the Lionesses, Simone Biles, Iga Świątek, Caitlin Clark, Trinity Rodman, Eileen Gu, Alyssa Liu, Nelly Korda, Ellie Kildunne, Faith Kipyegon, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and every other world-beating female athlete out there ruffling the feathers of incels and chauvinists the world over. You rule.