Max Bretos Use Of Gender Stereotypes In Professional Sports

Competitive and professional sports is a cardinal fixture in the lives of billions all across the globe. Sport is cherished and idolized by many as it gives the viewers loads of entertainment as well as a sense of pride. Sport has the ability to unite entire nations as there is a mutual sentiment attached to the desire of wanting your team to outperform the rest, it is all based on the notion that an athlete or team is representing you as an individual and an entire country. Professional athletes often have a certain stigma attached to them - they make tons of money, drive exotic sports cars, live in fancy houses, travel all over the world, they have achieved this by doing what they love day in and day out – by playing sport.

Everyone has a gender. It is something we are born into, and has an impact on every aspect of our lives. It affects how we walk, talk, and act on a daily basis. What truly is gender though? Gender is what defines many facets of our culture, and differentiates the roles people take on as men or women. Today, most countries define gender as the genetic and biological traits we are born with. However, what if someone felt they were supposed to be the opposite gender of the one they were born into? That is precisely the feeling that transgenders have from a young age. The feeling of not belonging in their own body and wanting to be someone else. To make things even harder, what if they were also an athlete? Not only would they feel like they don 't belong in their own body, but the sports they want to play or already play would be affected. With that, this paper will look at and discuss eligibility in sports, equality in the locker room, and self worth both on and off the field for transgender athletes.

I am a girl. I am blonde. I am a college student. I am an athlete. I am a girl, so I am only concerned with my physical appearance. I am blonde, so I am unintelligent and gullible. I am a college student, so I go out and party every weekend. I am an athlete, so I do not do well in school.

There’s always some people hating on the fact that MLB players are paid millions of dollars, but never have anything to back up how they are overpaid besides saying that it is ridiculous how much their paycheck is. Little do they know, that some of the money comes from fans, ticket sales, endorsements, and how well they perform. There is a lot more that goes into how they EARN that money.

Stereotype- a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Stereotypes show up everywhere, and the stories The Outsiders, a realistic fiction novel by S.E. Hinton, and the short story “The Athletic Snob” by Sam Barnes are no exceptions. In The Outsiders, the town Ponyboy Curtis lives in is divided in two: the rich, wild Socials, or Socs, and the quiet, tough Greasers. Throughout the course of the novel, Ponyboy, his brothers, and his friends start to realize that not all Socs and Greasers fit into people's ideas of who they are. The main character of “The Athletic Snob”, Joe Ricardo, also encounters false stereotypes when he meets an overweight boy named Piggy who doesn't play sports at

When you type in Female Athletes into a popular search engine like Google, the top hits are links that redirect to articles titled, “The Top 50 Hottest Athletes of 2016," “Unlimited List of Hottest Female Athletes In The World. In contrast, when you do the same for a Male Athlete you find articles about the “Best Male Athlete ESPY Award” and ‘Most Fit Male Athlete in Sports”. We see such a stark difference, even though they perform the same tasks. At an early age, parents tend to encourage the male child to participate in sports whereas they encourage the female child to join a dance or arts and crafts class instead. “You throw like a girl” is an expression that is often used, equating athleticism to masculinity rather than femininity (Hively

“Okay I’ll sign this paper, but this doesn’t mean you’re excused and you can’t make up the participation points you’ll miss.”

I think if you had to choose between a girl and a boy to be on your team for dodgeball , you’d choose a boy . It’s in everyone's right mind and mine that boys are more violent than girls . In a lot of studies boys are typically the ones to be more physically aggressive . They are more likely to get into fist fights and threaten others violently . Rather than girls that would typically get into more social and emotional aggressiveness. For example like spreading rumors and having arguments . Boys are more likely to start cussing and getting angry , walking out and making a scene. Also boys are more than likely to be more violent in sports like boxing and competitive in sports like baseball , soccer , track etc…

Sport media is no different from any other profession. There is gender bias in this field. Due to sexism, it makes it hard for women to even enter into the career path they desire most. There are many factors when it comes to gender bias, especially in sport media. Women are at a disadvantage in the field of sport media. Before 1978, female reporters were not allowed to interview players in the locker room before and after games (Clapp). It was not until 1978, when a female reporter decided enough was enough. In 1978, Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke sued the New York Yankees for banning her from entering the locker room to interview players during the 1977 World Series (Clapp). This case went to federal court and the judge decided that banning female reporters violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (Clapp). The Equal Protection Clause demands that the states “must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances” (LII Staff). Since women reporters were not allowed in locker rooms and men were, then this was a direct violation because women and male reporters were in the locker rooms for the same reasons. In the business of sport and as a sport manager, women being treated unfairly in sport media is something that needs to be addressed by fining and suspending those coaches, players and anybody involved with a sport organization who make sexist remarks toward women

The sports media in America has a lot of power. How the media portrays athletes and how it is perceived can be polarizing. Sports media depicts athletes based on race. It is becoming a daily occurrence for sports media to portray Caucasians is a positive light and African American in a more negative light. When an African American commits a crime it reinforces the negative stereotype and makes national sports television. But, when a Caucasian athlete commits the same crime the information is difficult to find on a local newspaper. The media’s portrayal can alter the fan’s experience. Which is the case for two current active NFL players. In 2011, USA Today reported Ben Roethlisberger the quarterback of the Pittsburg Steelers was accused of rape

The one negative perception that is always front and centered in some people minds when they initially meet me is the fact that I am African-American male student-athlete who plays football for UTSA, more than likely with below average grades. Nevertheless, on March 3, 2017 at 9:00 a.m., the UTSA Honors College acknowledged me as being more than an athlete, but a "true student-athlete". On this day, the UTSA Honors College acknowledged me as a UTSA Student with a 3.8 G.P.A., and a member of the Honors Community. Over the course of my football career, I continue to demonstrate leadership and academic excellence in the classroom and on the football field. My goal is to fight against the negative stereotype associated with being an athlete.

Before I conducted this media analysis about women in sports and sport broadcasting, I hypothesized the obvious - that more male sports would be in the media, and that there would be more male sports broadcasters as well. Through my observations I did find that the sports arena and sports broadcasting sphere are male dominated. However, I also found that although there are not many stories about women, there has been a steady progression and magazines like Sports Illustrated are becoming bold enough to highlight women athletes in a magazine that is targeted towards a male audience. Although women still have a long way to go, they are making some headway into the male-dominated sports arena.

Ironically, there is a stereotype out there that all athletes or ‘jocks’ are dumb and only care about their muscles. Well I’m about to prove that stereotype wrong. Yes, being an athlete you do have to take care of your body and make sure you are performing at your full potential, but playing sports is also mentally challenging too. The best athletes are the ones who strategize and play smart, whether it’s making plays or using their experience to their best abilities. They are the ones who have great sportsmanship and include everyone in a team effort. Being an athlete definitely kept me out of trouble, taught me how to work with others, but also taught me how to take care of my body.

In order to examine the relationship between genders, how often they use media content for sports, and how often participants use Twitter, a survey was conducted. Data was collected from March 29, 2015 to April 5, 2015. Two hundred forty undergraduate students at Washington State University participated in the online survey. We recruited a volunteer sample of participants who are undergraduate students.

From the three network affiliates they studied, they found that 96.3 percent of the coverage was for men’s sports and women only received 1.6 percent (Messner and Cooky 4). When analyzing the coverage of Sports Center, which is arguably the most popular sports show on television, they found that women still only received just 1.4 percent of their coverage (4). This study also found that 100 percent of the Sports Center programs had a lead story that was about men’s sports (4). Even the most renowned and credible sports show, which only shows sports all year long, does not even provide women’s sports with equal attention. Even more shocking than this was that the study also revealed that reporters devoted more coverage to men’s sports that were out of season than they did women’s sports that were actually in season (4). This can be extremely disrespectful to female athletes when their sport is pushed aside and ignored so that a men’s sport that is not even being played can be covered by the media. These women put all their effort into performing their sport at the highest level, but their media attention gets replaced by men who are in their off-season.