“Its 2021 And We Are Still Fighting For Bits And Pieces Of Equality”

Its+2021+And+We+Are+Still+Fighting+For+Bits+And+Pieces+Of+Equality

The NCAA basketball tournament lead to a TikTok gone viral by Sedona Prince about the NCAA Women’s Basketball “weight room” that only consisted of a rack of dumbbells while the men had a full weight room. The TikTok had the caption, “Its 2021 and we are still fighting for bits and pieces of equality.”

Fans came out with statements like, “NCAA needs to do better! This is beyond unacceptable.” Another fan commented, “This is ridiculous!”

NCAA came out with the statement it wasn’t a money problem it was a space problem. With that statement Sedona Prince showed proof there was plenty of room for a weight room in the empty area across from there practice court.

According to an article on the Slate website, “In 1993, an NCAA gender equity task force found that 70 percent of participation opportunities and scholarship funds went to male athletes, along with 77 percent of operating budgets and 83 percent of recruiting budgets.” This gap has gotten smaller overtime but men are still receiving the bigger percentage of these funds.  Also according to Slate, “Remember the commercials about how there are thousands of NCAA athletes, and almost all of them will be going pro in something other than sports? Those commercials are full of women. Juxtaposed with the NCAA’s actual treatment of women’s sports, the NCAA office appears more interested in using women’s sports for PR than in investing time and money in them.”

Ella Haggerty, a sophomore at Cape Central added, “Its just annoying that they lied about the situation when telling the truth could of prevented this.”

Fans, Players, and coaches were fighting for the equal set up that the men had and after enough fighting and publicizing the issue NCAA gave in with the issue and made that space the weight room the players had wanted.