The University of Utah and our state at-large fails to provide women equal opportunity throughout their college experience. As Frances Geerlings noted in her Sept. 20 commentary, this issue is present in education when women are motivated to stand in line for free panties but not drawn to attend an internship event. The inequality isn’t just apparent in education but in our beloved Utes athletics.
According to the State of Utah Auditor, The University of Utah generated more than $12 million during the 2017 athletic year through football ticket sales alone. The women’s basketball team generated just over $17,000.
Do we as fans feel that women don’t play as hard as men? Is this why game after game the women’s basketball team plays in an empty arena? This shows we don’t incentivize the support and participation for women in different areas of their college life. We women expect to leave as engineers, doctors and free thinkers, but our culture expects us to leave as wives and well-behaved women.
This cycle of disincentivization of our education will end eventually, but I’m done waiting. We’ve been conditioned by years of being praised for a ring on our finger, but seriously, celebrate the diploma in my hand first please.
Elizabeth Loughridge, Salt Lake City