Naming Practices of Women's Sports Teams

A recent post on the Womentalksports network by Fair Game News, titled Six Troubled Trends in Women's Sports (and what we can do), offered a look at six trends to concentrate on in the fight for equality in women's athletics. The fourth trend listed was particularly intriguing. It called out the naming practices of women's team nicknames. It cited the use of the prefix "Lady" (ex. Lady Bears) as a way to create, enforce and publicize women's teams as a second class status. In 2008, a sociology professor, Cynthia Fabrizio Pelak, published a report focusing on 249 schools, in 9 southern states and found that 69.5 percent of schools employed what she coded as a sexist form of naming. Most consisted of the "Lady" prefix which Pelak explains is sexist because it "imparts a tone of frivolity and lightness to the strivings and accomplishments of women."

Do women's sport team names invoke a trivial or frivolous value? Is this thinking only limited to the southern states? How does the rest of the 41 states play into these naming practices. What is the sentiment of the general public in regards to "frivolity of women's athletic accomplishments"?

Please participate in this survey, Naming Practices of Women's Athletic Teams, which is geared to collect the populations opinion on whether or not using the term "Lady" or "ettes" is demeaning to women's sports. It is not the intention of the survey to delve into gender equality or fairness of athletic programs across the country and their financial allocations to male sports and female sports. This survey strictly measures the opinion of the public on their feelings about using the "Lady" term. The survey asks only a few simple questions. It is open for submissions now and will close on February 28, 2010. The findings will be published soon thereafter. You can subscribe to this feed to ensure you will get the results or simply bookmark this site and check back. In order to get a good representation of the population feel free to pass the survey link along. Male or female, athletes as well as non sports fans are encouraged to take part. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.