Why Women Continue to Be Marginalized in Today's NFL

Gender.

It's certainly a subject that is getting looked at closely these days, with a tremendous amount of controversial bills and laws being bandied about across both state and federal levels.

While we aren't going into all that, what I'm about to talk about might generate as much dissension.

For as long as I can recall, the NFL (and sports in general) has worked hard to bring diversity to the league. We have the Rooney Rule to help promote minority hiring, and that has slowly created more opportunities among high-level coaching positions and has been successful enough that other leagues like the English Premier League has been urged to adopt it.

However, for all the gains in overall diversity (which, let's be honest, can still be a fight at times), there is precious little diversity in gender in the NFL, despite a strong interest among women in the game itself.

Is that good? Does that matter?

According to "The 2011 Racial and Gender Report Card: National Football League" released by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in September of 2011, "The number of female employees at or above the VP level increased by 36 percent."

Which actually sounds good until you learn that it went from 11 women in 2010 to 15 in 2011. The report also states that "the percentage of professional staff in the League Office who were people of color increased from 24.7 percent to 25.2 percent. Women made up 27.6 percent of the professionals, up slightly from 27.5 percent in 2010."

Small gains, but gains nonetheless.

Some other bullet points from the report:

—Amy Trask of the Raiders is the only female president/CEO of a team in the NFL, which she has been since 2005.

—The number of female vice presidents on NFL teams remains at 25.

—The percentage of the total senior administrator positions on NFL teams held by women increased to 21 percent in 2010, up from 17 percent in 2009.

—The percentage of women in professional administrative positions increased 1 percent to 29 percent in 2010, the third consecutive year it was below 30 percent.

So what does it all mean? Anything? Is it that the NFL is a "good ol' boys" network? Or is it that women aren't that interested?

I reached out to Stephanie Stradley help me get some perspective on the lack of females across the league.

In case you aren't familiar with Stradley's work (and you should correct that forthwith), she writes a Houston Texans blog for the Houston Chronicle called Texans Chick. She also worked for the late, occasionally lamented sports blog AOL Fanhouse

She not only knows her Texans, she knows her football.

There are some fairly relevant reasons why there aren't more women in positions of prominence within the NFL structure.

"In any traditionally male profession, it can be difficult for females to break into the business," she said. "In football, many of the positions are filled (often rightfully) by people who used to play the game at some level."

In other words, it's hard to get a leg up when you compete against people with real experience in their fields. Women—generally speaking—don't play football. For every Mo Isom who tries and comes close, there are hundreds of men playing organized football from the time they are able to stand upright in a helmet.

Stradley said that just makes it a little tougher for anyone. "Like many jobs, people hire who they know. Often who they know happen to be men."

This plays into another point she made that goes both ways. Whether you're a man trying to excel in a field dominated predominantly by women or a woman trying to do so in a man's field, you're going to have to be better than the opposite gender.

"For anyone to excel in a profession usually dominated by the other gender," Stradley said, "they just have to be especially good at what they do and have a thick skin to deal with people who may feel threatened by it."

This could explain to some extent the lack of women in higher-profile positions within the NFL. Their margin for error is thinner, so it's a much tougher climb up the ladder. Mistakes resonate more.

"Nobody is perfect at their job, but a female that makes mistakes in a male dominated field will be seen as making a mistake because of her gender and not because everybody makes mistakes," Stradley said.

This can be said for any endeavor where you are an outsider trying to make inroads into a more closed community, regardless of gender, race or specialization. People hire people who are recommended to them and those people are often folks who have been in the same field, known within the community.

It's not to say that you can't crack that circle—the 15 women serving as vice presidents within the league office are proof you can—but it's hard.

Somewhat silly as well—does it really matter that Joe EVP played Pop Warner for a few years and Jane VP didn't? I'd imagine not.

All this chitchat is nice but the real question is, does it matter? I'm quite sure a chunk of you never made it this far because to you it doesn't. Some of you are probably shouting in the comments section even now.

As far as I'm concerned, it's not a huge deal. Really, my biggest issue with it is that, perhaps inadvertently, the NFL could be missing out on some new ideas and new thoughts.

We've definitely seen some real innovation the last few years—moving the Pro Bowl location and time, extending the NFL draft to three days and prime time to name the two biggest—but the danger is always being too insular and too rutted into a way of thinking.

I'd imagine there are some very sharp women who may be able to add a lot to the league. I'm not saying it's the end of the world there aren't more women nor that the people in the league offices and teams can't be innovative (please see previous paragraph).

I can't help but wonder, though, if the mentality that this is a "man's league" could be cutting them off from some new ideas.

In the end, as with racial diversity, gender diversity is something that takes time to happen. For a sport like football, built on tough men playing a sport women do not, it will likely take longer.