Sexism At Play? How Female Athletes Are Questioned Differently From Male Counterparts

Eileen Gu has been in the spotlight for reasons that go beyond her performances on the slopes. She is not only captivating to watch in competition, but also commands attention at press conferences, while creating some of the internet’s most talked-about moments.

At 22, with six medals to her name, including three golds, she is already the most decorated freeskier in history of the games. Gen Z has dubbed her a “queen” and a “champion” for shutting down sexist comments and speaking openly about mental health at press conferences.

Also a Stanford University student, she most recently talked about how she applies an analytical lens to her own thinking and modifies it.

When asked about her thought process, Gu said, “You can control what you think. You can control how you think. And therefore, you can control who you are,” she said, adding that with every step, she becomes “the person that me at age 8 would revere.” 

However, her most viral moment from the Milan-Cortina Olympics was when she laughed off a question put forward by a journalist, deeming it “ridiculous”.

A reporter asked whether she viewed her two medal wins at the Winter Olympics as “two silvers gained or two golds lost.” She laughed at the reporter’s question and replied, “I’m the most decorated female freeskier in history. I think that speaks for itself.”

She went on to say that “winning a medal at the Olympics is a life changing experience for every athlete,” adding “the ‘two medals lost’ situation, to be quite frank with you, is kind of a ridiculous perspective to take.” 

Eileen Gu became the most decorated freestyle skiing Olympian this season, earning her fourth and fifth Olympic medals. She had previously won three medals, one gold and two silvers, at the 2022 Beijing Games, becoming the first freestyle skier to claim three medals at a single Olympics.

The question posed to her ignited an online debate over the contrasting ways male and female athletes are interviewed. “They would never ask a male athlete such questions,” one comment read. 

Sexism, ever-present, often manifests in constant comparisons to male counterparts, commentary on appearance or attire, and rigid beauty standards, challenges that female athletes face worldwide. 

At the Australian Open in 2015, an interviewer asked Eugenie Bouchard to "give us a twirl.” Bouchard and Serena Williams were both asked to show off their outfits on court after second-round victories. However, Canadian Bouchard responded, "I'm not offended. I'm fine with being asked to twirl if they ask the guys to flex." Twelve-time Grand Slam champion Billie Jean King described the male interviewer’s request as "truly sexist."

Furthermore, female athletes are often placed on a pedestal where a single mistake can trigger relentless scorn, with viewers and spectators showing far less empathy for their performance than they would for a male athlete in the same situation. 

Last year, when the Indian Women’s Cricket team lost three consecutive matches in the Women's ODI World Cup, a torrent of criticism was directed at them, with people on the internet questioning the team's commitment and intent; with some even commenting: “go back to the kitchen.”

It often takes male players to come to their rescue. Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra had replied to one of the tweets stating that the female cricketers should be trolled. “Criticism of their performance is warranted. There’s no justification for trolling anyone ever!!!,” Chopra said.

However, these debates extend beyond mere performance, wins, and losses; they also often involve comparing female teams to their supposedly superior male counterparts. Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Smriti Mandhana went viral during a press conference when questioned about sharing the same jersey number as Virat Kohli. Mandhana smiled and said, "We are here to talk about WPL, so let's stick to women's cricket."

Divya Deshmukh, an Indian chess grandmaster, in a lengthy social media post, shared her disappointment over the sexist behaviour she faced from spectators at the Tata Steel Masters, saying they “focused on irrelevant things like her hair, clothes and accent” during the tournament.

“I was quite disappointed to see how everything was discussed about in my interviews [by the audience] except my games, very few people paid attention to it and it is quite a sad thing.

“I felt it was unfair in a way because if I go to any guy’s interview there would be way less judgement on a personal level, actual compliments about the game and the player,” she asserted.

Mithali Raj, former captain of the Indian women’s cricket team with a career spanning 23 years, was once asked who her favourite male cricketer was. Raj snapped, “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?"

Female athletes are frequently judged by beauty standards, recognised either for “being pretty” or criticised for not meeting conventional expectations. BBC commentator John Inverdale discussed Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli on the radio: "I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe, 'listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker,” he said, adding if her father ever said, “you're never going to be 5ft 11, you're never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that.” He said how she should be a “determined fighter that anyone has ever seen on the tennis court if you are going to make it."

Sania Mirza, a six-time Grand Slam champion, former world No. 1 in doubles, four-time Olympian, and widely regarded as India’s finest women’s tennis player, has faced her own challenges as a Muslim female athlete in India, often being questioned for her choice of tennis attire, which is standard in the sport. 

In 2005, when the 18-year-old Mirza was beginning to make her mark in tennis, orthodox Muslim clerics deemed her on-field clothes “objectionable.” Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Hind, based in Kolkata, issued a fatwa warning that Mirza would be “stopped from playing' if she did not start wearing 'proper clothes,” The Guardian reported.

“We cannot consider her a good Muslim because she exposes her body in front of male spectators,” one cleric declared. Another, Maulana Hasheeb-ul-Hasan Siddiqui, told the Hindustan Times: “The dress she wears on the tennis court not only doesn't cover large parts of her body but leaves nothing to the imagination. She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence.”

The young athlete responded with a statement to the media, saying, “How I dress is very personal thing…it is scary that every time I wear a T-shirt, it becomes a talking point for the next three days.”

Mirza has been vocal of her choices as an athlete, as a woman and as an Indian, constantly defending her right to being. In an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai, Mirza gave a rebuttal when asked “when is Sania going to settle down?” and “about retirement, about raising a family, about motherhood, what’s life beyond tennis is going to be…”

Mirza said, “You sound disappointed that I’m not choosing motherhood over being number one in the world at this point of time,” she said, adding that women are often subjected to such questions. “The first is marriage and then it’s motherhood. Unfortunately, that’s when we’re settled, and no matter how many Wimbledons we win or number ones in the world we become, we don’t become settled.” 

Sardesai immediately apologised, admitting that “he would never ask this question to a male athlete..”

Although significant progress has been made in recognising women’s sports as legitimate, it is still undermined by institutional shortcomings and online trolling. Amid personal challenges and professional obstacles, the bias persists—type “Which female athlete” into Google, and the autocomplete suggests: “Which female athlete have the best bodies.”