Women in the Sports industry. We are severely outnumbered here, and unfortunately, while we're trying to play catch up, the men already have a major upperhand.
Take myself for instance...I work in Vitamin World, which is a nutrition store for vitamins, minerals, protein and other sports nutrition supplements. We pride ourselves on the customer service aspect, and the company offers a program where associates can learn about the products then test their knowledge to become a VW Nutritional Advisor. Most of the stores in the district however, are operating on either a 3:1 ratio or a 2:2 ratio. For the most part, the men outnumber the women, and I get to be a part of that lovely 3:1 store ratio.
It's not that bad, I mean I've learned a lot by working with men. I've learned about what they tend to focus on in regards to their health. While most of the older men tend to focus on overall health and heart health, we get the occasional specialty customer who wants to improve drive and energy. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, these men aren't exactly comfortable talking to women about these types of needs. I mean realistically, no man ever wants to reveal to a female employee at a store that he's looking to improve function, it's practically an ego destroyer. But now the same goes for the women. I've had so many women come up to me and say it's nice to see a girl in this store, it's mostly men and I can't always talk to them about certain things. It's a sucky situation either way you look at it.
Now let's look at the sports industry in its entirety. There aren't a lot of women out there. I mean they say the sports are equal but they're really not. The sports industry is still segregated for one thing. We have Women's Softball vs Baseball, Women's basketball vs NBA. Admittedly, some of these sports should be segregated, like wrestling and MMA, I mean it wouldn't be fair at all if a woman had to try to take down a man who even though may be in the same weight class, their frames are different and so is their mass. But in regards to baseball, I don't believe a larger ball is going to be the difference between whether or not a girl can play baseball or softball. I mean realistically, is this what we're basing it on? Same thing with the basketball, the weight of the ball is different as well as the courts, rules, etc. I mean these are two sports where I don't see the big deal in unifying them.
No matter the way you look at it, again, men have had the head start in the industry. Even today, a lot of the workout and sports supplements we have contain ingredients that are meant for expanding the frame, and for men, boosting the testosterone levels. For women who don't want to expand the frame, spike insulin levels, increase mass, all that stuff, we want something that will boost our energy and won't weigh us down. Not many supplements will do that. So we're stuck.
Hopefully one day we will catch up, but we have made phenomenal strides, we have women sports celebs, women Gold medalists, women champs, women sponsors, fighters, etc. We're getting there, and it'll take time and work, but we can do it, cz we're women!
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