Society and Sports

Society and Sports

There are many repercussions that are projected upon both men and women when they enter into a sport that typically isn’t thought of as gender appropriate. Some of those cultural and social stigmatisms may be abandonment by your peers, and friends questions regarding your sexuality, and even in some cases criticism as to how you are living your life. In some cases, it may lead to you not being accepted by either group, theone whose norems you are not following, of as well as the one with whom you are trying to get involved. This paper will address all of these issues and how these seemingly negative situations can, will, and are, leading to growth. It will also discuss how this is a situation where repercussions are not just in the sports arena, but is prevalent in everyday life, in areas far beyond that of sport.

First, I would like to discuss some of the issues that were discussed in the WNBA article, “We’ve Got Next”. This was one of the best articles that we have read this semester. It shows a lot of issues, like stigmatization of women and men in sport, and how the media and the general population regard them so differently. The article made great comparisons between the different ways men and women play basketball, claiming that women play more for the team, and use great skill and tack, while the men are out there to increase their status, and are in essence putting on a show. This very well may be the fact, but it is the social reasons given for this that I find hard to believe. Society believes women to be more of the caretaker and the person who makes sure everything is even, before all other things. the person who is selfless in the face of a general goal. These rationalizations appear in the...

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... the changes being made in society, like African Americans being allowed to participate in Major League Baseball.

Professional, semi-professional, collegiate, secondary, and youth affiliations --have all felt the impact of women and men’s diffusion into arenas that are not commonly their own. As shown throughout this paper, these effects are both negative and positive. What I have learned is that these hindrances and acceptances cannot slow us down. There are many areas that still need to be opened up to both sexes and ideas that athletes need to prove wrong. The struggle isn’t over, and I don’t think it will ever be over. Society and athletics go hand in hand in helping to equalize men and women in sports, as well as in society. Individual accomplishments, failed attempts, and suffering help to bring us all one step closer to being equal on all playing fields.