In the year 2008, the first black president was elected in the United States, but in the same year, according to the FBI website, there were about 5,600 hate crime offenses classified as crime on race and ethnicity were reported to the police. There were three women justices on the United States Supreme Court for the first time in 2010, but in the same year, full-time working women earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. In 2009, there were more than 750 billionaires, but it was also the highest unemployment rate that has been in thirty years. Young and educated Americans are more accepting for gays and lesbians compared to some years before but there is still a massive amount of people who oppose to same-sex marriage. There are much more federal laws than ever before to protect a person with disabilities from discrimination in employment, but almost 26,000 employment discrimination claims were filed according to United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2013 by people with disabilities.
It was one gloomy afternoon that my friend and I were on the phone talking about how our day was going. I complained to her how finals week is almost here and how there is so much to do with so little time. She, on the other hand, had an interesting story to tell that day and thought it connected well with my group assigned subject. She said it was a hot sunny day to be running a mile for a fitness examination. They were to run four two hundred meters to equal a mile. While she was running, the coach constantly yelled and accused her of cheating to complete the mile. She also said that the coach did not yell at the girls who just kept walking to complete the mile. I, then, asked her if the coach wa...
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...er, D. L. (2006). Girlie Girls and Manly Men: Children's Stigma Consciousness of Gender in Sports and Physical Activities. Journal Of Leisure Research, 38(4), 536-557.
Fagrell, B., Larsson, H., & Redelius, K. (2012). The game within the game: girls' underperforming position in Physical Education.Gender & Education, 24(1), 101-118. doi:10.1080/09540253.2011.582032
Voss, L. D., Hosking, J. J., Metcalf, B. S., Jeffery, A. N., & Wilkin, T. J. (2008). Children from low-income families have less access to sports facilities, but are no less physically active: cross-sectional study (EarlyBird 35). Child: Care, Health & Development, 34(4), 470-474. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2008.00827.x
Anderson, E. (2011). Masculinities and Sexualities in Sport and Physical Cultures: Three Decades of Evolving Research. Journal Of Homosexuality, 58(5), 565-578. doi:10.1080/00918369.2011.563652
Society has always had the idea that males should participate in masculine activities and females in feminine activities. These activities define the lifestyle that person would have. It was also believed that if a male was not involved in masculine activities, that male was not a man. Sports is a field that has been dominated by males in the past years, and more recently has had a lot of females take part in it. But does playing a sport define one’s masculinity? Michael Messner, the author of Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities, discusses the effect sports has on upcoming young men of different races. The effect of being introduced to a sport at a young age allowed males of different races to gain a sense of masculinity,
This is simply leaning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. The article examines the way sports focus and define what it is to be masculine. Many interview subjects when asked why or how they first got involved in playing sports reported that it was just thing to do or even said, “I was a natural”. Let’s clarify something; there is nothing natural about throwing a ball through a hoop 36 foot away nor is there anything natural about hitting a baseball thrown at 98 miles per hour and hitting it with a 32 inch bat. Playing sports may feel “natural” to some, but you must be exposed to it first before mastering the skill. This exposure can come from an early age of observing other peer or family influences playing sports and learning their behaviors. Of course, a boy can be born with amazing hand-eye coordination, but this does not predispose him to a career of hitting baseballs any more that it predisposes him to a life as a brain surgeon. By listening to the men interviewed in the article, it became clear that their adoption of self definition of natural athlete constructs their masculinities, and observation learning from exposure to sports subconsciously influenced decisions to play
The existence of hegemonic power related to gender roles in sport limits the participation of students in Sport Aerobics. This hypothesis is supported by the data gathered from a survey that 24 Nambour High students took (Appendix 1). The survey included 2 female and male students from each year level. This survey revealed that only 16% of students have participated in Sport Aerobics and the majority of the students were from the senior year levels. When the students were asked what gender Sport Aerobics is for over half the students said both male and female. However, 37% of the students said that Sport Aerobics is for women only and 6 out the 9 students that answered women were male meaning that the majority of male students believe that Sport Aerobics is a feminine sport. None of the students believed that Sport Aerobics is an only male sport. Seventy percent of students throughout all the year levels believe that men are stronger than women. The only students that said women were female themselves. It is fixed in to student’s minds that men are stronger than women because of the lack of recognition to female athletes on the media. Students only see strong male athletes such as rugby league players presented on the media. This accounts for the 70% of students that do not watch any women’s sport and the only students that do were female. This result is due to the lack of women role models in the
Girls are told to stay indoors and play with their dolls or bake, while boys are encouraged to go outdoors, get dirty, and be adventurous. Wade and Ferree also state “sports are squarely on the masculine side of the gender binary” (Wade and Ferree, 174). Hence, we are brought up with the understanding that playing and talking about sports is a boy’s thing, which further promotes the notion that sports are a very masculine thing. Furthermore, as playing sports is competitive and is a way to show excellence, young boys are considered as “real boys” and “real men” later on. However, when boys do not talk about or play sports, they are considered feminine or “not real men.” The same rule applies for young girls. If young girls are too into sports, they are considered to be “too masculine.” This is true for me too. When I was younger, I was told to not play too much outdoors and to behave “like a girl.” The stigma that only boys should be allowed to play sports and it is not a feminine thing needs to be erased for us to welcome a more gender-equal
Sports, in general, are a male dominated activity; every “real” male is suppose to be interested and/or involved in sports in the American society. However, it is not expected of a female to be interested in sports and there is less pressure on them to participate in physically enduring activities. These roles reflect the traditional gender roles imposed on our society that men are supposed to be stronger and dominant and females are expected to be submissive. As Michael Kimmel further analyzes these gender roles by relating that, “feminism also observes that men, as a group, are in power. Thus with the same symmetry, feminism has tended to assume that individually men must feel powerful” (106).
It goes without saying that a person's gender, racial and social origins influence their participation in sports. Particular races and genders often dominate certain sports. African Americans, for example, tend to dominate football and basketball, while Caucasians tend to dominate ice hockey. The same holds true for gender as well. Football is an entirely male dominated sport, while horseback riding, gymnastics and figure skating are much more female oriented. How and why did these divisions come about? Determining the origin of gender goes beyond the scope of this paper, however one can speculate about how gender classifications and stereotypes affect one's role in the sports arena.
"The Relationship between Athletics and Academic Achievement (Bowdoin, Gender and Women's Studies)." Bowdoin College. Mar. 2009. Web. 27 July 2011.
Children learn the differences between men and women’s roles in society from a young age. It is not something that is biologically instilled; rather it is something it is taught by observing the roles each gender partakes in their respected fields. When it comes to employment, children distinguish jobs like nurses and teachers are usually for women and firefighters or presidents are for men (Jacobs 2008). This may because they see members in their family holding these positions or being taught in school that certain genders usually hold certain positions. The same is true for children and associating gender roles in sports. Men usually become basketball, football, or soccer players. Women are not the first gender children think about when it comes to being athletic in competitive sports. Boys start to understand what masculinity is because of participating in sports and do not want to be called “fag” or “sissy” (Douglas Hartman 2008). They may kick the ball around with a male family figure, like a father, who instructs and criticizes...
Within todays sporting community, certain aspects of sport and its practices promote and construct ideas that sport in general is a male dominated. Sports media often provides an unequal representation of genders. Women athletes are regularly perceived as mediocre in comparison to their male equivalents (Lenskyj, 1998). Achievement in sport is generally established through displays of strength, speed and endurance, men usually set the standards in these areas, consequently woman rarely reach the level set by top male athletes. Due to this, the media significantly shows bias towards male sports while we are ill-informed about the achievements in the female sporting community. On the occasion that a female athlete does make some form of an appearance in the media, images and videos used will usually portray the female in sexually objectified ways (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). This depiction of female athletes can cause males to take focus solely on the sexual assets of the athlete in preference to to their sporting abilities (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). Sexualisation of sportswoman in the media is a prevalent issue in today’s society, it can cause physical, social and mental problems among women of all ages (Lenskyj, 1998).
Steinfeldt J., Zakrajsek, Carter, and Steinfeldt M. (2011). Conformity to Gender Norms Among Female Student-Athletes: Implications for Body Image. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 12(4), 401-416.
Krane, V. (2001). We can be athletic and feminine, but do we want to? Challenging hegemonic femininity in women's sport. Quest, 53,115-133.
Women’s participation in sport is at an all-time high and has almost become equal to men’s, however. Sports media does not fail to show this equality and skews the way we look at these athletes. Through the disciplines of sociology and gender studies, it can be seen that despite the many gains of women in sports since the enactment of Title IX, “traditional” notions of masculinity and femininity still dominate media coverage of males and females in sports, which is observed in Olympic programming and sports news broadcasts. Sociology is a growing discipline and is an important factor in the understanding of different parts of society. Sociology is “a social science that studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them” (Faris and Form P1).
Hegemonic masculinity is the belief in the existence of a culturally normative ideal of male behavior. This ideal among other things includes the belief that men should be big, strong, and athletic. Sports, especially contact sports, reinforce this idea, as an athlete is seen as the ideal of what it means to be a man. The general belief associated with gay men is that they posses none of these traits and are thought to be feminine. These normative beliefs are not the case and are actually st...
Whether its baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or tennis, sports is seen all over the world as a representation of one’s pride for their city, country, and even continent. Sports is something that is valued world-wide which has the ability to bring communities together and create different meanings, beliefs and practices between individuals. Although many people may perceive sports to have a significant meaning within our lives, it can also have the ability to separate people through gender inequalities which can also be represented negatively throughout the media. This essay will attempt to prove how gender is constructed in the sports culture while focusing on female athletes and their acceptance in today’s society.
Physical education must be mandatory for students all over the world. It provides many conveniences for children later in life. Sports in school encourage kids to play more outside of school and from there, their health increases. Unquestionably, physical education improves kids’