Summary Of Throwing Like A Girl

Women gradually were overcoming disadvantages they had dealt with for years and years. Now that women could participate in sports and when they did they exceeded, higher expectations were slowly becoming a norm. Faster times were expected for women’s running events such as eleven to twelve seconds. Higher and longer heights were set for long jump, triple jump, and high jump. Long jump went from five feet to six feet three inches, triple jump went from thirty to thirty- four feet, and high jump went from four feet six inches to six feet. .Throwing further distances went from fifteen feet to thirty feet rapidly. These events became increasingly difficult due to women proving their physical ability more and

Kirk, D., 2002. The Social Construction of the Body in Physical Education and Sports. ResearchGate, Page 79.

“The Frailty Myth” is an issue that has haunted women in sports from 1865 until now. Although women have the capability to play any sport desirable, they are subject to limits and are still seen as “weak” individuals. For example, there are multiple differences between men’s and women’s basketball that is a true representation of “The Frailty Myth” today. The first difference is the size and weight of the ball. According to the author, Mona Huang,

Men more often move out towards the ball and flight and confront it with their own countermotion. Women tend to wait for and then react to its approach, rather than going forth to meet it (Young, 1990, p.146)”. Another example demonstrated in ‘Exercises for men’ cited in Henley (1986:143-4) is walking down a city street. Paying a lot of attention to your clothing: make sure your pants are zipped, shirt tucked in, buttons done. Look straight ahead.

Gender stigmas are slowly but surely being broken from old traditional views from past generations. The saying of like a boy and like a girl once meant to offend the opposite sex. However, the video sponsored by Always shows that millennial girls no longer see the segregation that’s being like a girl used to be. When asked how girls run, kick, or throw, those girls in the video gave their best effort. In no means did they diminish their ability to act out an action due do

Contemporary sport and physical culture have a lot of trends circulating within the lifestyles associated within them. Winning and losing, exciting and boring, and masculine and feminine. Popular media emphasizes exciting, winning, and masculine sports in our culture with little mention of losing, boring, and feminine sports. These trends are cultured into children from a young age and has been passed down in each generation. Young boys grow up to be tough and hard headed because “masculinity builds strength”, whereas girls grow up to be soft and poise with small attention that “femininity builds weakness (Roth & Basow 2004, p. 247.)

In the first reading: Sports, Males and masculinities, Pringle (2007) analyses how the relationship is developed between sport, masculinities and gender relations. First, historically, modern sport developed in the 1800s in male only English public schools. In Western

It all started in the transitional days of middle school, in 7th grade, when I heard something on the announcements about Boys Volleyball try-outs. What I was contemplating at that moment as I sat there at the beginning of first period was something I would doubt and argue against to many other people in the years that followed; that Volleyball is a “girls’ sport.” As I now realize, the Volleyball that I play is anything but a girls’ type of sport.

Other ideas are forced upon males as they mature in competitive sport, such as how the ideal male body includes broad shoulders, muscular chest and arms, and a narrow waist-lead to an achievement-oriented approach to masculinity. It takes work to build such a body, and the men who do so often view muscular development as a way to define themselves and prove their worth. This masculine identity is directly a result of the male competing with each other in sport, and what they view as “better” or “dominant”

666). Traditionally, it has been instructed by constrained and set gender systems that “content and pedagogical practices of PE are built (and reproduced) through limited ideologies and stereotyped visions of heterosexual femininity and masculinity” (Clarke, 2002, p. 42). Tinning, Macdonald & Hickey (2001), acknowledge that since the 18th century, the discourse of gender has been culturally integrated into sport, this developed into what we know as PE today, with a strong emphasis on males. Games which were similar to football and cricket, were introduced for disciplining young boys. However, females were considered to be less skilful and “more susceptible to injury,” therefore, rather than participating they had an obligation to prepare afternoon tea for the males (Tinning, et al., 2001, p. 166). As a result, it was argued that PE was “a masculinist practice” which ostracised preferences of movement for females (Gard, 2003, p.

On the subject on her thoughts on feminism being viewed upon as a joke throughout social media, she says that a true feminist can respond with one question, “Do you believe that women and men are equal?” She says, “When you have an individual that wants to debate, do you want to have a discussion, or have a debate?” By making a question about the person who views feminism as a joke, they do not realize the true idea of feminism and understand the statistics that also come with it. Nichole elaborates on society and the things that still indicate that gender bias is still shown in everyday life. “You throw like a girl,” is a commonly known phrase used in sports. Nichole describes how even though “You throw like a girl” is a phrase that is subtle and short, it negatively influences how young women are perceived. It indicates how when a child hears “You throw like a girl,” to them, it parallels to a negative connotation. This child’s ‘throw’ is viewed as not strong enough, fast enough, or good enough. At a young age, girls view how they throw, their ability to be strong, and most importantly, their perception becomes negative. Additionally, Nichole explains how boy programs hold a phrase, “I will,” while girl programs hold the phrase, “I will try.” Girls at a young age are pushed to be risk takers and try new things, while boys are almost born with knowing that they can try to be anything that they

Another sociologist, Michael Messner, illustrates how society “does gender” by discussing the elective affinity between masculinity and sports through his piece entitled, “Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities” (Messner, 1990). In this article Messner claims that sports teach people to devalue femininity, which is evident through negative expressions coined by society such as “You throw like a girl.” Because playing sports teaches aggression and teamwork, the world of sports is an institution that is built around masculinity. Even when women play sports, they are masculinized.

Gender, race, and competitiveness in youth sports have been controversial beginning on the very first day of sports broadening its boundaries (Granderson, 2012). From Brent Barry to Kristy Yamaguchi to Tiger Woods, one of the youngest golf champions ever, sports has always been "one way.” Different people of different backgrounds, ethnic groups, and social classes, and ages have shown that he or she can do anything if they have the will to accomplish the task (Granderson, 2012). Tiger Woods won 71 PGA Tours, Kristy Yamaguchi excelled in figure skating and Brent Barry showed that White men can jump when he won the 1996 slam dunk contest. Race, gender, and youth have nothing to do with ability and skill in sports (Granderson,

In Wacquant’s (2004:16) view, one needs to acquire a set of ‘’bodily and mental schemata’’ and also to construct the ‘’theory of practice’’ to effectively participate in sports (Bourdieu, 1997). Borrowing from this approach, I will seek to understand and describe my lived experience through active participation in sports. In this regard, my research will follow the dictates of Mauss, (1979) that, to attain a disposition to do sports as in the case of any other technique of the body, the work done by the individual will be for practical collective reason (that underlines accepted theories of social action). In societies where athletes excel, the benefit is not for only the athlete but also the community as Brownell (1995:15) explains in ‘’training the body for China’’. Developing his ideas further, Mauss (1979) posited that there are instances where a ‘’physio-psycho-sociological’’ congregation of series of action may be habitual or ancient in the life of the individual and also in the history of the society. The idea of a habitual “physio-psycho-sociological” comportment might help account for why women do not participate in sports to the same degree as men – the larger social habitus does not include a prominent role for women in sports participation.

Sports have different meanings for different people and across societies (Laker 2001:4). The way one engages in sports is influenced by the cultural or ethnic group to which one belongs (Sever 2005:4). Even though the rules of sport may stay constant, meanings diverge and are varied (Besnier and Brownell 2012). Sports serves as one of the most contested and celebrated institutions in our society (Appleby and Foster 2013:1). As a result, it will be impossible to fully understand contemporary society without acknowledging the place of sports (Jarvie 2006:2). The body transformed from being a biological entity to a cultural body since the 1980s to help understand the complexities of the body in sports (Besnier and Brownell