Gender In Sports

1275 Words3 Pages

Gender in Sports

In high schools and junior high schools across the country the importance of

interscholastic sports competitions is strongly demonstrated to the students.

They see the rewards and accolades given to the accomplished athletes, not only

at these levels, but at the collegiate and professional levels as well. While

most of these teams are formed and exist for both men and women, it is

interesting how different each team tends to be treated. At High school

football games, for example, the students and faculty show up in record numbers

to prove their loyalty to the team and to the school itself. This football team

is always comprised of men who use the sport to demonstrate their masculinity

through the smashing and bashing of each other's skulls. Occasionally, one may

find a select number of women who had to fight their way onto the team only to

sit on the sidelines and watch. It is quite probable that such girls are only

able to get onto the teams on the basis that most schools simply do not have a

football team dedicated solely to the women football athletes. This lack of

recognition for female athletes only becomes more frequent as one progresses

through the levels of competition in virtually any sport. The games of women's

teams, where they do exist, tend to draw only limited crowds at most levels of

competition, scholastic or otherwise. In the realm of athletic activities, the

American society has chosen not to offer the same opportunities to its women as

it traditionally has to its men. For centuries, it seems, it has generally been

accepted that sports and other activities relying upon physical performance

have been left for the men to participate in and enjoy. The women were

generally left with the "traditional" duties of managing the household for their

amusement. Just as many things have come to be drastically altered over the

course of the last century or so, so has this old fashioned idea. Women have

shown an interest of their own when it comes to sports. They have demonstrated

that they, too, want to be able to prove their physical ability and talent

through competition in a variety of athletic activities. While most of these

activities are adapted versions of the same sports that were originally played

by the men, women have shown that they can play them just as hard and as dirty

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...little girls off to play "school" and "house." This has, over time, been

enlarged to be the general idea where sports are concerned. At the scholastic

levels of competition, high school and college alike, while teams have been

created for women, the best resources and ideas are usually reserved for the

players on the men's teams. They are the primary reason that the new stadium is

erected or the new facilities have been designed to accommodate. These

institutions only contribute to the sense of inequality among the sexes in

their blatant separation and mismatched treatment of the sports teams of men an

women. The crowds often flock to the men's games, while only the diehard fans

come to watch the women's teams hard at work. All of this is only enhanced by

the lack of any professional sports leagues in which women may participate and

form careers. The idea that women cannot handle the world of sports is

ridiculous because general assumptions of that magnitude cannot be accurately

made by anyone. Women are as capable of playing athletics in the respected

arena as any man is and it is time that action be taken to observe the truth of

this statement.

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