Gendered Bodies In Sports

Within sport, as throughout society, gender differences exist. The socially constructed phenomenon of gender dictates a dichotomous system whereby females are feminine and males are masculine. Focusing on females specifically, society determines the feminine traits and roles ascribed to this gender. Being domesticated, slender, passive and heterosexual are a part of the desirable appearance that society has formed surrounding femininity (Wolf, 1991). On the other side of the dichotomy is the masculine realm that sport plays into. Sport is fuelled by muscle, power and aggressiveness, which are behaviours and images associated to masculinity. Sport therefore, defies all existing female gender ideals. It would be assumed that females have no place within this institution due to the gender clash. However, female athletes do exist, and many are very successful. For this to work, sport has established and reinforced the social constructions of gender that exist in society. Female athletes are viewed as inferior and are pushed into gender appropriate sports. Furthermore, they are often labeled as masculine until they can prove otherwise, and so great attempts are made to reassert femininity. The stigma associated to being masculine or homosexual for female athletes is so great that many have become irrationally fearful of this label. The sexualisation of the female body and overt displays of heterosexuality are used in

According to Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” Because of the establishment of this international document, much progression toward the equality of rights for all with inherited and acquired traits has been achieved over time. In particular, gender equality has made a great deal of headway since the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. Even though this may be the case, there is no doubt that female athletes are far from considered equal as compared to male athletes in modern sports. In today’s sports society, women athletes are still discriminated against based on lower salaries, less media coverage, and lack of opportunity.

The sounds of yelling and playful banter resonate throughout the locker room after practice. While the locker room has always exhibited a rowdy climate, today’s locker room is a little different than in the past. Across almost every college and university campus in the United States, students suffer from the effects of “gendering” both in their private realm and within the school’s institutions. In the case of Oxy, the concept of gender as a set of solidified roles has been largely eradicated. However, while the freedom of gender choice remains at the core of Occidental’s values, we continue to see some rigid gender differences and boundaries in realm of athletics, which in itself is an institution. Athletics does not perpetuate differences

A sporting event in today's culture is a business. It's all focused on getting as many spectators as possible. Now the question comes, what makes these spectators so interested in elite sports such as American Football, Basketball, or Rugby? What makes the average spectator want to spend money and watch? It's this perspective of male aggression that lures these spectators. Physicality, athleticism, and even size are all factors that, attract the eyes of the public. To an extent, a sporting event of any kind is a show to entertain and enhance profit. This desire for aggression, speed, size, and physical features are all what define the role of behavioral factors that influence the gender sporting difference.

To finish, the article by Knoppers, Meyer and Comeaux explored the method of gender, by showing the point of view in every context of sport for female such as soccer and basketball. However, both of those sports demonstrated that how woman, gender is not different, but able to do anything men are able to accomplish. First of all, those articles discussed the result that physical movement involved with playing sports does not harm any woman's players' body, in fact, it provides a better health and reduce any types of sickness or mental health condition. Nowadays, women sports have increasingly developed around the world, at this time and moment, women are starting to earn more than they used to be, society have more respect for them and the

It didn’t take long for the puns to start on social media regarding Doug Weight and his head coaching debut for the New York Islanders as they prepared to take on the Dallas Stars in Brooklyn. Admittedly, I joined in the ‘fun’ leading up to faceoff and at select times throughout the game. After all, why should you have all the fun?

I will be looking primarily for under-representation (and therefore- over-representation) of either gender as well as themes of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized feminity. These are the current social gender ideals to many people in Western societies that both gender should strive for. Hegemonic masculinity in sports could look like muscular, shirtless men performing difficult athletic tasks and being paid for it, because they are a professional athlete. Emphasized feminity would look like a female athlete in sparse clothing, taking part in a women’s activity (for example: horrible emphasized feminity would be many photos of women only supporting climbers rather than climbing). She would be perceived as attractive to men, but not strong and respectable as an athlete or competitor. These gender influences have been placed upon infants depending on their

Knowledge of why certain gender groups attend more men's games then womens has great importance for understanding how to raise attendance as well as awareness. The reasons why groups attend the games they do are still not completely understood, especially for Division 2 schools. For, Division 1, it has been claimed that attendance to their women's basketball tournament games has risen since 2008 (name xxx). The tournament is the culmination of the season, it features the top teams from each conference battling for one title, champion. However, major universities such as Texas, Utah and Georgetown still face declining attendance for regular season games (name xxxx). If attendance is on the rise why are these schools and Division 2 schools still

The activities I chose to ask the class about are mostly individual activities, for example reading. Playing sports and hanging out with friends are the only group activities I asked the participants about. My results show that the men have a higher score for physical activities, like playing sports. The average man’s score for sports was 9.8 compared to 5.8 for the average woman’s score, however I expected the average scores to be more similar because I think there is a big push now for both genders to be active and participate in physical activities. Parents believe that participating in sports will teach kids how to handle winning and losing, build leadership, and learn how to be a team player, so they see it as a useful experience that both genders should participate in. My data shows that in general both men and women participated somewhat equally in group activities, as both had high scores for hanging out with friends, which was the activity boys and girls had most in common. The scores also seem to be pretty similar for the individual activities as well.

Coed sports teaches both genders how to do teamwork with each other. Let's say a girl gets a job and she has a partner and her partner is a boy. If she was good with communicating with a different gender she would have been working well with him. Some girls might not be the same level as the boys so to cooperate while playing the game might stress the

In terms of the level of structural context, many different sports and organizations play a role in developing gender roles. Many girls don’t play football, soccer, or basketball while wearing pink jerseys and little girls don’t run around with them. Boys will get down and dirty. This is true for dancing as well. When someone walks into a studio, he or she doesn’t see little boys dancing around in pink and purple tutus. Instead, little girls are doing jumps and turns. When the opposite gender is doing these things, they tend to stand out. The structure of girls and boy’s bodies are made differently which is why we see a difference between the two when they are playing the same exact sport. The concept of these games may be the same but the

You made brilliant observation. When I saw the clips provided in lecture, I too loved the men's clip compare to women's. It rightly justifies the quote from lecture “Men’s sports were always promoted as if they have special historical significance whereas women’s sports were promoted in a lighter, less serious manner (page. 5).” The level of thrill, excitement, sound quality, and camera angles was way too good and far better than women's clip. Also, the men's promo featured Oscar winning actor Mahershala Ali, which is good enough to draw the attention of the viewers. However, the women's clip was sort of flat and boring from the viewers point of view, which is not commendable if you are willing to see equality among both men and women sports.

If I could choose the gender, intelligence, athleticism of my children, would I do it?

During this century women have been able to break out of the traditional female mold. Women have broken the chains that bond them to the home and have emerged into all sorts of male dominated arenas, including sports. Women have become athletes in their own right. In the last ten years there has been validation for the female athlete. The WNBA was created giving women a professional league in a mainstream traditionally male sport for the first time since the All American Girls Professional Baseball League went out of existence in the 1950s. And recently a woman made the cut and participated on the professional golf circuit with the men. Today, we see women athletes in the media regularly. Women's college basketball is given airtime on weekends just as men's is.

Women. Men. They are both a unique and special being that is on earth. In a perfect society, men and women would have the same physical strength and they would be completely equal. The idea of women and men being able to play against each other is wonderful but realistically it might not work out as great. Of course, women can do anything men can do, but in a competitive situation like this, the results of this change could bring forth more negative impacts than positive ones. In professional sports, women and men should be kept separate due to being biologically different and because of the possibility of the quality of the performances in the sports decreasing.