Women In Sports Equality

1109 Words3 Pages

Grander and sport - equality and equity
Introduction
In Ancient Olympics, competitive sports were masculine affairs. While males compete to show their prowess, women were prohibited to even watch competitions, much less compete.
And I see, quite simply, even in this day and age of supposed equality and meritocracy, sport still remains a male domain, especially on the community level. Even with improved opportunities and treatment, there is still an invisible barrier between sport and the everyday woman. In the next section, this essay shall explore some of the reasons for this situation.
Statements
“The inclusion of women at the Olympic Games would be impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.”
(Pierre de Coubertin, 1912)
“It …show more content…

While many women have increased opportunities in comparison to their historical counterparts, gender and gen-der-related forms of exclusion and discrimination remain important topics in the sociology of sport. It is important to explain why most sports around the world have been defined as men’s activities, why half the world’s population generally was excluded or discouraged from participating in many sports through history, and why there have been dramatic increases in women’s participation in recent years. To explain these things we must understand the relationship between sports and widespread beliefs about masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and other aspects of sexuality in culture, society and …show more content…

This is why they have been excluded from some sports while at the same time they have been encouraged to play sports that emphasize grace, beauty and co-ordination. Throughout most of the twentieth century, this exclusion was rationalized by experts and educators, who told women that if they played strenuous sports, they would damage their uteruses and breasts, and experience problems endangering their abilities to give birth and nurture their children. Many people believed these myths because they were consistent with dominant gender ideology and the ideas that females were naturally weak and therefore vulnerable to injuries and over-exhaustion in

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