Mike Piazza is straight, everybody calm down. The press was at Shea Stadium with bells and whistles on. A rumor for so long, the confirmation came in at an impromptu press conference only Major League Baseball could hold. When a retired NFL defenseman came out of the closet nobody noticed. A former San Diego Padre admitting to be a homosexual barely made a blip on society's radar. A former Mr. Universe is gay, a fact not very well known, and when a two-time Olympic swimming gold medallist came out; his HIV status is what received the most attention.
But early on in the 2002 season, all of the New York Mets, Major League Baseball, the entire country, would stop and give attention to the subject of gays in sports when Mike Piazza stood up on the podium and boldly declared he was … straight.
The next day, the papers ran the announcement, exposing Piazza as indeed being straight. He appeared on the front pages flanked by Playboy models on either side of him, and laid off on his blonde highlights for a few weeks.
Piazza, whose coming out as a heterosexual was in response to comments made by then-manager Bobby Valentine which led to rumors in the press, helped clear up any notion that Valentine was right when he told Details magazine that Major League Baseball was ready for an openly gay player.
Baseball is certainly not the only sport that doesn't seem ready to accept openly gay players. According to the San-Diego Union Tribune more than 43,000 athletes have played in America's four major male team sports- basketball, baseball, hockey, and football. Of those 43,000, not one has been openly gay while playing. Five men have come out publicly after retiring.
"It challenges peoples stereotypes of what people consider a homosexual to be in our society … much like what happened when it comes to race," said Peter Roby, director of the Center for Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. "We thought blacks couldn't run long distances, we thought they couldn't skate, we thought they couldn't throw as far. Once we saw they could, it made white America question their own beliefs about what they thought were social constructs. The same is true now, for homosexuals who play sports."
The concept of sports as the "last bastion" for homosexuality holds true not just for professional sports, but for sports at the high school and collegiate level as well.
At first polio was a troubling prospect when it first reared its ugly head in the United States of America. In a noble effort to be rid of polio, America as a whole was to adopt stringent sanitation measures. Everywhere, especially the home was to be spotless and clean in order to try and prevent the contraction of polio. This coupled with the view that America as a western nation seemed impervious to such a lowly disease tried to assuage American fear of the disease. Despite the measures commonly adopted throughout the myriad of cities and towns, polio still managed to spread around the country and wreak havoc taking thousands of lives. An outbreak that ravaged America claimed nearly 27,000 lives in a terrible reckoning before it finally subsided. This and several other troubling outbreaks
“Homophobia in sports serves as a way to control women, both gay and straight” (Flanagan.k,2008)
Paralytic poliomyelitis, "polio", held a reign of terror over this nation for decades. But unless you were born before 1955, polio may seem to be just another ephemeral disease that has been nonexistent for years. Those born before 1955 remember having a great fear of this horrible disease which crippled thousands of once active, healthy children. This disease had no cure and no identified causes, which made it all the more terrifying. People did everything that they had done in the past to prevent the spread of disease, such as quarantining areas, but these tactics never seemed to work. Polio could not be contained. Many people did not have the money to care for a family member with polio. This was one of the reasons the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was organized. The March of Dimes, the fund raiser headed by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, raised thousands and thousands of dollars to help people care for their polio stricken family members and to aid in the cost of research for a vaccine that would put an end to this misery that affected the lives of so many people.
Polio: An American Story describes a struggle to find a vaccine on polio through several researchers’ lives, and over the course of many years. The second thesis is the struggle between Salk and Sabin, two bitter rivals who had their own vaccine that they believed would cure polio. The author David M. Oshinsky, is describing how difficult it was to find the cure to a horrifying disease, which lasted from the Great Depression until the 1960’s. Oshinsky then writes about how foundations formed as fundraisers, to support polio research. Lastly, the author demonstrates how researchers were forced to back track on multiple occasions, to learn more about polio.
When we consider the education of our children in the United States, we must consider their health as a significant issue as it can positively or negatively impact a student’s education. It has generally been acknowledged that there is a great disparity in our country in the area of health care. Healthy People2010, a published report put out by the Health and Human Services Division of the Unites States Government (2000) has included as part of its Goals for 2010, to eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population. According to this report, health differences occur depending on a persons gender, race or ethnicity, education or income, disability, rural locality, or sexual orientation. In this paper, I will mostly concentrate on racial and ethnic differences as well as socioeconomic differences. According to the Healthy People 2010 report, biological and genetic differences do not explain the health disparities experienced by non-White populations in the United States. Besides "complex interaction among genetic variations, environmental factors, and specific health behaviors," Health and Human Services says, "inequalities in income and education underlie many health disparities in the United States." Also, "population groups that suffer the worst health status are also those that have the highest poverty rates and least education." Health, United States (1998) reported that each increase of income or education increased the likelihood of being in good health. According to this report, those with less education tend to die younger than those with more education for all major causes of death including chronic diseases, communicable diseases and injuries. There are several factors that account for differences between socioeconomic and racial and ethnic groups. These factors include a lower sedentary life style, cigarette smoking and less likely to have health insurance coverage or receive preventive care among these groups.
Fifty-nine years after the vaccine was introduced to the world, the number of cases of outbreaks has dropped 99% and only three countries still remain in an epidemic state with the virus, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1994, the WHO Region of the Americas was certified polio-free and in in 2013 only406 reported cases were existent in the world, compared to the 350 000+ cases in 1988. (Who, 2014).
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, but so Cassius Clay, Jackie Robinson, and Bill Russell. Long before King’s famous “I Had a Dream” speech or Rosa Parks famous stand came something much simpler: sports. Sports have always had the ability to open people’s eyes in a way that is more impactful than words or actions. The way that athletics can shape a persons mind, or open their eyes to something beyond what they already believe, is incredible. They can get everyone to root for a common purpose, a common goal. And for some, that was freedom. The integration of professional and collegiate athletics not only changed sports history, but helped shape American history.
In the sports world, homosexual athletes are often forced to hide their sexual orientation and to keep it as a private matter. This is mainly due to the hegemonic masculinity associated with playing sports. Homosexuality is considered the direct opposite of this and therefore is not associated with sports. Also the way athletes talk to each other in the locker room makes it more difficult for gay athletes to come out. Guys jokingly call each other homophobic slurs or pump their chest by talking about women to express their masculinity. Female athletes, unlike their male counterparts, are considered to be more free to talk about their sexual orientation. But, there still exists the misconception that women who participate in sports are assumed to be gay. In college and professional men’s sports it is beginning to become more common for athletes to be more open to talking publically about their sexual orientation. This brings up the question as to whether or not things are changing in our society so that the acceptance of gay athletes will be more common. More acceptance by our overall society as a whole will lead to more gay athletes – both male and female – feeling free to step forward and be open about their sexual orientation.
Education is a very important factor in a person’s life and there is different parts of education whether that may be primary, secondary or further education like college or university. These skills and knowledge that is taught develop us into the person we become later in life. Learning just doesn’t stop after school or further education, each individual develops and continues to learn through life for example jobs and new experiences. Therefore, education is an important social determinant of health which can affect not only individuals but families and communities too as well as having a large impact on our physical and mental
In Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities, Michael A. Messner examines how society has constructed people to believe that sports equates masculinity in young men. Messner conducted interviews with 30 former male athletes, all who have played either baseball, basketball, football, or track. “The boyhood development of masculine identity and status-truly problematic in a society that offers no official rite of passage into adulthood-results from a process of interaction with people and social institutions” (Messner 123). In other words, social interaction has led to the emergence of the troublesome stigma that associates males with sports and aggressiveness. Messner goes on to say, “Although playing organized sports eventually came to feel ‘natural’ for all of the men interviewed in this study, many needed to be ‘exposed’ to sports, or even gently ‘pushed’ by their fathers to become involved in activities like Little League Baseball” (Messner 125). This is a result of the different stereotypes that have been associated with males and females. Conditions of worth are imposed upon children at young ages, thus leading to the false belief that these different aspects of society are “natural” when they are in fact established by people and affecting the way society operates. Carl Rogers founded the humanistic approach to psychology, in
People with more education have better physical and mental health; also education helps improve the overall quality of people’s lives. By helping people get better jobs, it reduces financial worries. It builds self-esteem, feeling of being in control; it also makes them critically aware of media messages about health. It contributes to health behaviors, such as moderate drinking, anti-smoking, according to the Institute of education at the University of London (Dec. 2004). As stated earlier, education reduces inequalities, creates intolerance, build social cohesion and boost the health of whole communities.
For many years gender inequality in sports was still present, even after the women's right movement, Title IX was passed in 1972 (Sandys, 2007). Title IX banned sex discrimination in any education program that is federally financed. This was supposed to correct the imbalance of treatment between the sexes of college students. Since the passing of the federal gender-equality law, universities started to offer a chance for many of women to participate, that was not previously offered before (Adams & Tuggle, 2004). Now that more women have jumped into the sports arena, many institutions are giving the appearance of offering more sports to females (Hardin & Shain, 2005). Equal opportunity for women in sports would provide better psychological and sociological development that would derive from the impact of sports participation.
For many years, baseball has been a male dominated sport and still is today by the limited amount of female baseball players and the nonexistence of women’s league in the MLB. Women are categorized into a similar game to baseball known as softball, thus arguing that women do not have the same physical ability as men. During the rare times you would notice a female baseball player or any female athlete, society is very quick on labeling these females as lesbians, dutch or dyke. This exemplifies the inequality of gender roles within the sport culture as society struggles with the acceptance of female athletes because they are portrayed to be weak and pristine. It is also argued that baseball has been stereotypically represented to be more of a “father and son” game since at most events, it is more likely to see a male individual bring other male friends for a guy’s night out watching the game of baseball and drinking beer. Rarely would you ever see a father bringing their daughter to these games mainly because of the stereotype of sports being a manly thing in which creates the stereotype of women to be interested in less aggressive activities such as dance. Thus, it is proven that Sports revolve around men causing them to be interpreted as masculine activities in which women should not participate in due to their feminine qualities that are perceived as
If a girl has an experiment with her roommate in college, some people who say that that automatically makes her a lesbian, but that may not be what she identifies as. The same concept applies for males. For instance, many members of male sports teams have traditionally been pushed into partaking in hyper-masculine activities and behaviors, pushing the ideas of homosexuality to the category of taboo. However, as times continue to change, so do the behaviors and ideas towards homophobia. A soccer team of sixty men were interviewed to disclose their opi...
In conclusion always think about how to spend your money rather than how to earn. Be cautions of products and think of how much you want to spend on a specific product always asses what you need and this of how to refrain from impulse buying. Don’t deprive yourself from buying what you love, instead budget yourself and think according. Separate you necessities from other luxuries. If you balance out your spending and savings saving money would definitely get easier. Saving money is being able to control and know how to spend your money wisely.