Tessa Mouzis Ms.Gommermann Honors English 10 06 May 2024 Game Changer Essay “I want to thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport. She carried a heavy load for our sport and it’s not going to stop here on the collegiate tour,” said Dawn Staley, a former WNBA player and current South Carolina women’s basketball coach. This plain and simple statement speaks volumes. Anyone with eyes can see what she is capable of and know the impact that she’s created on the game, they may even say she’s left a legacy. Through Caitlin Clark’s outstanding basketball abilities, she has contributed to increasing the popularity and recognition of the game while being a role model to people all around the country and redefining the perspective of women’s sports for generations to come. Clark has brought …show more content…
Historically, these were the norms to follow in women’s sports. Stay classy and never compete at the same level that men do. This idea that women needed to stay feminine showed a stereotype that women had certain roles and rules they needed to fulfill which made it hard for women to try to be the best they could be. Over time, this has since changed with the help of Caitlin Clark. Her intensity on the court is unmatched, and she can even be seen trash-talking during the game, just like the men's players do. There are now different, new standards that you do not need to be feminine while playing a women’s sport, but instead should be passionate and use your skills to make a difference. All in all, people should remember Caitlin Clark for the way she has completely changed the game, even with her impressive statistics and records she claims, “I don’t want my legacy to be, Oh, Caitlin won X amount of games, or Caitlin scored X amount of points,” “I hope it’s what I was able to do for the game of women’s
Turn on ESPN, and there are many female sports reporters, and many reports on female athletes. Flip through Sports Illustrated, and female athletes are dotted throughout the magazine. Female athletes star in the commercials. Female athletes are on the cover of newspapers. Millions of books have been sold about hundreds of female athletes. However, this has not always been the case. The number of females playing sports nowadays compared to even twenty years ago is staggering, and the number just keeps rising. All the women athletes of today have people and events from past generations that inspired them, like Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the All-American Professional Girls Baseball League, Billie Jean King, and the 1999 United States Women’s World
Women have been playing basketball for over a century before the Women's National Basketball Association came into existence. It was here at Smith College where many women got their first taste of the game. Women were described as having a "masculine performance style... rough and vicious play... worse than in men" (Hult 86). This aggressive playing style had to be modified because the violence and rough-housing that was going on were becoming intolerable. Eventually the Official Women's Basketball Rules were modified in that there was no dribbling allowed on the court at all, players were not allowed to make physical contact with each other and women were not allowed to grab the ball out of another women's hands.
...ennis, basketball, soccer, and martial arts—have come from the days of cheerleading and synchronized swimming when she was growing up in the ’70s.” Disparities in media coverage and over-sexualized female athletes on magazine covers is something that needs to come to an end because of its effects on both male and female viewers, young and old, athletes and non-athletes. Both female and male athletics influence young people and shape their personality and morals as they mature. Retired WNBA player, Lisa Leslie credits her participation in basketball with shaping her character, as well as her career. “Sports can also help teenagers during an awkward time in their development.” (“Women’s Athletics: A Battle For Respect”). The solution is to come together as a society and identify how to balance the respect for female and male athletes in the media.
After the invention of basketball, it started to spark interest in females across the country. Only problem was that the people believed the sport to be a man’s game and was no fit for a woman. When the game was invented, it was modified to man’s needs and wants. It was modified to be an aggressive strategic type of game and apparently wasn’t a fit for women. Although it wasn’t considered a fit for women, they did everything they could to play. Jenkins states that “Women's basketball has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1892” (Jenkins).
In 1970 only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports, today that ratio is 1 in 3. Sports are a very important part of the American society. Within sports heroes are made, goals are set and dreams are lived. The media makes all these things possible by creating publicity for the rising stars of today. Within society today, the media has downplayed the role of the woman within sports. When the American people think of women in sports, they think of ice skating, field hockey and diving. People don’t recognize that women have the potential to play any sport that a Man can play, with equal skill, if not better.
Despite the struggle for success, males and females who choose to play sports that are non-traditional to their gender benefit socially and culturally. Those athletes who dare to compete are paving the way towards a society where gender acceptance and equality exist. However, for every benefit, there is generally a cost. In the world of sports, it is fairly obvious that people have experienced many costs including insults, ridicule, and lack of acceptance, but the benefits gained are much more vital to sports and the future of athletics. Competing in sports that are non-traditional to one's gender can only make society stronger, and our culture more unified.
Frantz, Chris. "Timeline: Women in Sports." Infoplease/Pearson Education,, 2007. Web. Lombardo, John. "New President Aims to Widen WNBA’s Fan Base." SportsBusiness Daily, 30 May 2011..
Women have forever had this label on their back of being too small, too weak, too feminine, and too boring. The traditional gender roles of the female interfere with the extortionate nature of competing in sports. Men are usually the ones to go 100% and give whatever they got, and to show masculinity while doing it. The standard masculinity of being strong, smart, and taking charge over dues the feminine traits of being soft, gentle, and polite. That’s what society has taught us to learn and accept. But the traditional female gender role is diminished when participating in athletics and people may think it’s weird to see females compete at the same level as males do. Men have always had the upper hand in the professional, collegian, and high
Professional women's sports haven't been around too long, although it does have an extensive history and root system. In 1865, Vasser became one of the first women colleges in the United States. Within the safe boundaries of campus and away from the curious eyes of men, w...
Gender in sports has been a controversial issue ever since sports were invented. In the early years, sports were played only by the men, and the women were to sit on the sidelines and watch. This was another area of life exemplifying the sexism of people in which women were not allowed to do something that men could. However, over the last century in particular, things have begun to change.
In summary, Despite opponents argue, fans want to see thunderous dunks and incredible athleticism over the lesser abilities of females, male competitions is more intense and there is more at risk, and male driven associations produce more revenue than female driven associations. It is apparent that male and females are built differently therefore they have different abilities, females go through the same types of events and often have more on the line, and female athletics aren 't given the same recognition or praise. Then, maybe one day female will receive the same amount of pay as their male counterparts. As, Vera Nazarian once implied, “A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given. A woman is human.”
"Brenna Rushing said it best when she wrote “The SMU women’s basketball team wins games; th...
...her heritage and the rich history of womankind. The female athlete must be sensitive to this and show that, even as she succeeds in a traditionally male arena, she can satisfy this most basic of feminine ideals.
Cis women athletes who want to compete in a professional level are not going to be given a fair chance to succeed and to work up to the top when transgender women who biologically have the body of a male are competing against them. A born male who identifies as a woman and competes as a woman who does not take any hormones makes the situation even more unfair because this means the transgender women competing as a woman has the body structure of man, same level of testosterone of a man, and strength of a man. The reason why this situation is such dilemma is because high schools clearly states that women are to compete in the women’s sports and men are to compete in the men’s sport but as to how genders are defined remains unclear. The book Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sports by Eric Anderson goes into depth about people have started to identify as transgender, the sport policies placed for transgender athletes, some background, and it is a new concept on how some people identify themselves. Consequently, it makes it difficult to know where to place transgender people when it comes to sports.
Ann, 2007, pg. 57), however this is not true. This mentality causes males to resent the female athletes, thus rendering it even more difficult for them to succeed. Without a shift in gender ideology, females will continue to face adversity, regardless of the amount of change that has occurred over the last 30 years. There does not need to be equality between the genders within sports, however equity must be seen, with the perception of the abilities that female athletes possess not being compared to that of males. This would aid males to not feel as threatened by females participating in sports and physical