Serena Williams was victim of sexism, a new study claims

Serena Williams was a victim of subconscious sexist bias in the final round of the women’s singles at the 2018 US Open, a new study claims. Allison Goldstein said: “I was just really curious as to whether there was any research to back up Serena’s claims. “And the answer is kind of yes-and-no. Sexism is so hard to prove in any tangible, numeric way. “I hope this incident at least raises the possibility in people’s minds.” The article published in the journal Statistics Views noted what most of these arguments boil down to is the question of whether women are penalised more often for the same behaviour as men. If 100 men and 100 women shouted the same obscenity during a tennis match, and 75 women were penalised, would 75 men be penalised, too? However, there is no record of every action taken by every tennis player and if there was it would be a subjective tally. Ms Goldstein pointed that earlier in the 2018 US Open tournament, Alize Cornet was penalised for taking off her shirt on the court. But Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and other male players conducted the same on-court wardrobe change during their matches that very same day and were not penalised. She said: “If we take these two factors- fewer women spending less time on the court – into account, the disparity in fines for violations between men and women decreases considerably. “However, what it doesn’t do is show that women are actually fined more often than men. “Thus, statistically speaking, there isn’t any real concrete evidence to show that, when it comes to being issued a violation, women are treated any more unfairly than men.” “What is interesting about the Grand Slam tournament violations, however, is that most of them are issued for what could be perceived as anger, or ‘acts of aggression.’” Ms Goldstein added: “So a vast majority of tennis violations are issued for expressions of anger… and research shows that women are disproportionately penalised for showing anger.” She pointed out several studies revealing that women are disciplined and discredited for expressing anger: “All of this is relevant to the tennis squabble at hand. “If it is indeed true that women are disciplined and discredited for expressing anger, then it stands to reason that Ramos penalised Serena to a degree that he would not have done if a man had acted the same way. “Does that ‘make it okay’ to receive coaching, smash a racket, and berate the umpire of a professional tennis match? Of course not. “But it’s worth a second look at our inherent biases and how they might influence not just tennis matches, but people’s entire livelihoods.” Source-thelondoneconomic.com