Throughout many aspects of the article, Gorn reveals evidence that sports are intrinsically tied to the development of power and superiority. “Above all, brutal recreations toughened men for a violent social life in which the exploitation of labor, the specter of poverty, and a fierce struggle for status were daily realities” (Elliot J. Gorn, 2001, p. 22). Individual status was never permanently fixed, thus “men frantically sought to assert their prowness” (Elliot J. Gorn, 2001, p. 21). Based on aggressive self-assertion and manly pride we can see that there was a fierce competition and struggle for social standing. If we look at sports today, we can see that sports are more than just a contest, an effort to impress judges or a struggle for
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of immense change in Europe. Germany had recently unified, destabilizing the centuries-old balance of power. The second industrial revolution was in full swing, and Europeans thrilled to the latest inventions, from the skyscraper, the first airplanes, and, most ominously, to the machine guns of Maxim and Krupp. During this time, Europeans perceived sports in a number of ways. First of all, many saw sports as an arena to train their nations for war. Secondly, others saw sports as a unifying principle around which to build nationalism and ethnic identity. Finally, many simply saw sports simply as a healthy and productive activity.
Hall of Fame basketball coach Larry Brown once said, “You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself.” This was a huge problem for the people of the 19th century as they had troubling living with themselves. Being raised during a time of changes, a lot of people felt that their lives were not meaningful and that they would be looked at as weaklings. With the changes occurring in the work world as well as society in general, both men and women needed activities to show their prowess. The main way that people could show their excellence was through sport and play. Sport and recreation served as an escape for people who felt that there life didn’t have meaning. One of the recurring
Black male athletes have been stereotyped ever since the 19th century. Since Jackie Robinson’s venture into professional baseball in 1952, there has been a constant debate on the subject of the athletically superior, but intellectually inferior Black Male athlete. These black males were forever delineated as inferior to their white counterparts. As a matter of fact from the very beginning of man kind’s civilization process his established societies all over the world have sought ways to glorify the individuals that exuded or better yet, displayed outstanding physical and athletic abilities. These facts became further stated in 1619 when a Dutch Man of War, that was anchored off the East Coast of America, exchanged “20 and odd Africans” for some much needed supplies to secure their voyage back to Europe. It was there that the exploitation of Africans, and later Negroes-Colored-Blacks, and finally African-Americans, began in the Western Hemisphere. And even though Black males and Black females were rewarded for their reproductive abilities, the men were always viewed as the archetype of what physical abilities, physical talent, physical competency, physical valor, and overall physical courage looked like. These Bucks, as they were referred to, would appease the white plantation owners with sporting events such as with boxing matches, racing events, sexual exploitations, and strength lifting exercises i.e., who could stack the most bales of cotton in a given period of time.
The article relates to sports because it refers to gender ideology because it identifies the “children as male and female” and the “roles of females and males in society” and this article describes how these children were treated according to status and gender (Coakley, 2015). This information coincides with information in our text. According to (Coakley 2015) organized youth sports children perceive them as a way “to enhance their status among their peers” robbing them of enjoying the sport because it is controlled by adults “that focus on the improvement which can
This essay will concentrate on looking at the ethnic and class divide within the sports subculture of American society, and how it reflects American Society as a whole. When examining any society there is a always a broad area to cover, while looking at America’s society I will be looking at the arguments that it is the ‘land of the free’ a ‘new nation’ which immigrants flocked to start a new life in a country of much ‘opportunity’. I will be using the sport in the 19th century to examine just how much America was a land of opportunity and of the free, and whether it differed from the attitudes in countries from around the rest of the world.
The concept of sports, as a competitive physical activity, has existed through much of recorded human history and it is academically recognized to have played a fundamental role in shaping
Looking through American history, we see that sports has been used to conserve and show off the social order going on at that point in time. They [sports] was and is used to show off one's masculinity, to show off one's racial superiority. Tools like discipline, cooperation, strategy and rigor allowed the superior elite to use sports as a way of prepping businessmen, military member or industrialists. While African Americans, Japanese and other oppressed minorities to aim for equal treatment on and off the field.
A sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Sports originated in early history as males only, and was often used to see which male was more dominant. In today’s society sports have a different meaning and is played by both genders, but still holds a mentality of superiority. In this essay, I will be arguing the Social Constructs of Masculinity in Sports in the language and the actions used when performing these activities through both genders and how some actions are acceptable for one gender and not for the other. Using Laurel Richardson’s article Gender Stereotyping in the English Language, and X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould. The article and story will help distinguish the use of words in our society and how they are incorporated in sport and how the actions of a person that does not fit the social standard faces repercussions for their actions.
Over the course of time, sports have come to signify masculinity; athletics such as football and basketball easily having come to deem where one fits in terms of societal norms regarding gendered bodies. One could argue that sports, in a modern context, have come to be synonymous with the idea of athletic and/or muscular bodies, which are those that are not regarded as the bodies of ideologically feminine ones given the intense and high pressure nature. In “Sports and Male Domination: The Female Athlete as Contested Ideological Terrain” written by Michael A. Messner in 1988 sheds light on the idea that traditional images of femininity have come to solidify male privilege through the construction and naturalization of gendered characteristics regarding women such as weakness, fragility and dependency .
Women’s participation in sports has changed over the centuries. In ancient times, men dominated societies. Women were viewed as the caretaker, a provider for life. Women who did participate were criticized and were thought of as threatening. In 18th century America, women were considered inferior to men because of the belief that women are the weaker sex. A woman’s purpose in life was to take care of the house, children, and husband. When they did want to participate in recreational sport, they need to be able to negotiate with men and with other women because societies did not make it easy for women to participate. For example, there was a
Sports of old were merely competitive activities rooted in heroism and romanticism. Sports activities today, however, have no such innocence or simplicity. Currently in America, the activities that make up our sports culture is not only the competitive events themselves but the processes and issues that underlie and surround them. Entwined in our sports culture is the giant business of mass broadcasting. Indeed, sports and the media go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly, like Mickey and Minnie, Darth Vader and Luke. They are intertwined and depend on each other to continue to grow. Sports media includes television, radio, magazines, newspapers, books, films, and, now, most importantly, social media devices provided by the
This study reveals much about the attitudes that persist in society today regarding sport and gender. Early on, sport was created to serve men, evolving as a celebration of maleness, valuing strength, power, and competition. It idealized, promoted, and rewarded successful, elite athletes, established “the dream” as a professional career in sports, and viewed mass participation in sport as a tool to weed out the weak (Hill, 1993). In contrast, women’s sports originated to “address the expressed need for healthful exercise” (Huckaby, 1994). Unlike the competitive warrior mode
1..An American Apotheosis, written by Joseph L. Price, discusses the religious element of sports. His thesis, “For tens of millions of devoted fans throughout the country, sports constitute a popular form of religion by shaping their world and sustaining their ways of engaging it.” (Price, p. 196) Takes on the difficult challenge of defining sport as religion. This is done through Price’s exploration of how sports shape and engage the world for the millions of devoted fans in America, how sports enable participants to explore levels of selfhood, how sports establish a means for bonding with the devotee community, how sports model ways to deal with fate while playing by the rules and how sports provide the prospect of experiencing abundant life.
The period of 1865 to 1950 was critical to the formation of “Modern” sport that is recognized today. In an article by Allen Guttmann titled From Ritual to Record: the nature of modern sport, Guttmann outlines seven characteristics that played a central role in the development of sports. These concepts were created as a sociological history of sports and took into place both American and European competitions. Guttmann’s notions of secularism, rationalization, bureaucracy and quantification, among others, all advanced the culture of sports; yet the most important of the stated characteristics is equality.
While it is well know that sport and athleticism can transform the human body, they also have the power to reshape cultures and national identities. This way of thinking was witnessed during the colonial era with the introduction of ‘gentlemanly sports’ as a means of pacification and social control (Presterudstuen and Schieder 2016, p. 224). Through the acceptance and