In light of the panel discussion we have this week, I thought I would pose some questions about current gender issues in sports media. Unfortunately, due to the lack of coverage on women’s sports, it’s been a bit of a task to find anything incredibly recent. So what I decided to focus on was the idea of Title IX and how it has helped mold the sports world for women, particularly young female athletes. For those who may not know, Title IX states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Prior to the Title IX act being passed which supports equality for women in sports, there were countless cases of unfair circumstances for female athletes. As an athlete in high school, I am aware that not all of the inequalities can be solved with the snap of a finger, but the surge in efforts has made a huge difference. I had two female friends in high school who participated in sports targeted towards males. One of them was a wrestler and the other played football and men’s lacrosse. This obviously brought a fair amount of controversy to my high school, as it put into question their femininity. As it is pointed out in the Handbook, “while male athletes are objectified as well, the character of the objectification is quite different when it comes to female athletes.” For instance, male athletes are able to flaunt their masculinity and the more they do so, the more empowering it is for them. On the other hand, women who flaunt their bodies, even if it is to exhibit their athleticism, can be seen as more degrading.
I don’t want to make it seem as if there aren’t gender issues for men in sports, that aren’t based in appearance, however. Title IX also protects male athletes, who wish to participate in sports targeted toward females. My high school also had a male athlete who played field hockey. Sure enough, this sparked controversy, as well. I must say though, the ridicule that he received was more from the student standpoint, based on the fact that he had to wear a skirt, as it was part of the uniform. It was a concern to the athletic department for the fact that he may have more strength, which could in turn injure a female more. With the female athletes playing football or wrestling, the worry was that they would be hurt by the majority of male athletes, or that they may damage the team’s ability to function at their highest potential out of fear that they may hurt one of the females.
For further reading on representation of women in sports
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgibin/iowa/issues/media/article.html?record=881
All of this being said, what are your thoughts on equality in seemingly “gender-specific” sports? Should the men be allowed to play with the women’s teams, or is the risk too intense? Do the same rules apply when a woman wants to play in a man’s game? Where should the line be drawn?
Fortunately, there is an uprising in the contact sport field for women, with the popularization of rugby and even the leeway for contact in women’s soccer is increasing. Personally, I wish I had the opportunity to play, so I wouldn’t have to slide tackle girls on the basketball court to get out that pent up frustration. Apparently they frown upon that.
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11 comments:
Based on how things are with allowing women to play in men's sports, just on the basis of being fair men should be allowed to play women's sports. In my personal opinion, though, it would be too risky to allow a male to play with the women's teams in most sports. In sports that could have contact, like basketball and soccer, the risk is too great for a guy to be more powerful and cause injuries for some of the females. Also, lets be honest, if a guy went and tried to play in the WNBA the reaction would be much different if a woman tried to play in the NBA.
I'm in the middle when it comes to women playing men's sports, especially football. I mean, if a person is good at a sport they should play it no matter their gender, but I don't know about football. Women should have the opportunity to try to play football if they want, but everyone has to understand the brutality and physical punishment football provides. It gets tricky to me because while I wanna say let women play whatever they want, they should want to improve their own sports first. The example I think of has to do with a total non-contact sport in golf. Michelle Wie wants to go play in PGA events and be the first to qualify in certain ones, but she should first look to dominate the LPGA. It's all good for her to want to play in PGA tournaments, and she probably will successfully one day, but she shouldn't do that at the expense of a women's league.
My high school was very competitive sports wise, but they were not so keen on allowing females to play men's sports and visa versa. There were two incidents at my high school, one when a female soccer player decided to try out to be the kicker on the football team and another when one of my male friends tried to start a mens volleyball team. The female was cut from the team the second day of practice citing scheduling issues with the soccer team and the mens volleyball team was never formed (despite a substantial interest) because there were no men's teams for them to play and the High School Ivy League has some bizzare rules.
I think you should be able to play whatever sport you want regardless of gender, and I don't think we should be turning people away from physical activity, ESPECIALLY at a young age. Heck if I had kids and my little boy wanted to go out and play field hockey, I'd just be happy he was getting some excercise considering the problems kids have with their health nowadays.
All the nonsense with girls getting hurt during games is crap (pardon my french). In football you have a ridiculous amount of padding on. Seriously, if a girl is tough enough to stand up to the stereotypes and deal with being on the team, she should be treated no differently.
Here's an article about Holley Mangold (the sister of NY Jets Nick Mangold) who plays for her high school football team: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=garber_greg&id=2672149
As far as men doing women's sports I think I would be offended as a played if someone told me I couldn't have a boy on my team because he might hurt someone. Well guess what, girls are pretty vicious on the field and I wouldn't be surprised if that guy went home with his fair share of bruises.
The thing with the gender issues is that we look at women differently than we look at men when playing sports.
When we watch women, we expect them to be graceful, non-violent, and friendly.
But when we watch men, fights are encouraged. Violence is "just part of the game."
Take hockey, for example. Collegiate women's hockey does not allow checking (it's a 2 minute penalty for checking). In the men's game, not only is checking allowed, but fights are sometimes encouraged (especially in the NHL).
We look at the two teams differently, and I don't know why. It's just the nature of the beast right now, and the beast doesn't seem to be dying anytime soon.
I do believe that any person, regardless of gender, should be allowed to participate in any sport they want. If a woman is strong minded enough to get on a field with men and show some masculinity despite what people may think of her, than she should be tough enough to take a hit. And if a guy is comfortable enough with his sexuality to wear a dress on the field, then he should be allowed to play. That being said, I don't think it is a good idea, even though i do believe the choice is up to them, to have women and men participating in each others sports. This is mostly due to the fact that if a girl plays football, one of two things will happen. Either the guys wont take her seriously and tackle her, which then leads to issues of teams not giving their all and not wanting to win games. Or the guys will treat her like anyone else and beat the hell out of her, which will lead to controversy over a guy hurting a girl. Either way its not good and just confuses the nature of the sport. And if a guy plays a womens sport he either will be very aggressive, which will make some people upset that he is being so "rough" with the girls, or he will back off which again leads to issues of complacency and lack of effort.
The bottom line is that men and women are different. They are looked at differently in society itself and in sports. Its just like the issue of the pimp and the slut. If a guy gets a lot of girls, hes a pimp, hes the "man." If a girl gets a lot of guys, shes a whore. Men and women are different! So even though i believe they should be allowed to make the choice, because we do live in a free country, i think men and women should just stick to what they do best, respectively.
I think it comes down to the matter of performance. If a female can tackle a guy on the field and is actually good at the sport then more power to her. But I think that most women don’t have to strength to play on a men’s team, especially football. Also, I think it is a little far fetched to think that a man can play on a women’s team. My question is, why would he want to? First of all I feel like there would be no competition and frankly it wouldn't be fair. Men are supposed to be stronger and more aggressive than women, it's pure fact. Women have their sports, and yes the ratings aren’t as high as men's sports, but it is just what people want to watch. I honestly think that equality in sports just is not going to happen. I personally do not like to watch women play sports because I think it is boring and less aggressive. Yes I did enjoy playing sports in high school, but I went into it knowing what to expect. To say that women and men deserve equality in sports is fair, but I do not think it will ever happen in this lifetime.
I totally think that guys and girls should be allowed to play each others sports if the sport isn’t offered in their own sex. If a guy wants to play field hockey I think he knows what he is getting into when he is playing with a group of girls…he most likely isn’t going to run around on the field like a chicken with his head cut off trying to fight all the girls. I do think its difficult for girls to get into guys sports, Nikki did your friend play the sport as the kicker? I feel like it is nearly impossible for girls to compete in a man’s sport on the same caliber as the guys. Its clear in our society that men’s sports are more taken too and make MUCH more money, so I feel like Title 9 is a burden to sports.
One thing that I did think about while reading your post Nikki is how the gay population is becoming much more prominent in our society and people will take a stand on how they feel about homosexuals in sports. They could be made fun of, especially in high school. Do you think there would be a backlash if Notre Dame recruited a gay quarterback. I also think that locker rooms would be effected because maybe the players would feel uncomfortable. Or maybe they would just take the approach of the military with a don’t ask don’t tell policy. But what if a player was openly gay…I think in the future we are going to be seeing more and more homosexuals prominent in sports.
I feel that like Ron said it is fair that if we allow woman to play on men’s team then the reverse should be done. I think that women should be able to play whatever sport they want to, as should men. Each knows exactly what they would be getting into and therefore there is no reason why this cannot be allowed. I know a lot of girls who can make men cry if they were playing each other. One sport that comes to mind when talking about homosexuality in sports is woman’s rugby. One of my best friends from home is a woman’s rugby player and the first question many people want to know is if she is gay. While there are a large number of gay women in rugby not all of them are and I feel that is a bad stereotype, which is forming. Joanna said that she feels for a gay athlete it would be difficult but perhaps something seen more soon or just not spoken about. The issue I see is with my friend who plays rugby, she is not gay but because of her choice in sport many people think she is which is a negative stereotype swelling around woman’s rugby. So a gay football player would he had a hard time or is it worse to assume just because one plays the sport means they are gay. The situation is tough for both and theoretically in this day and age should not even be an issue.
I don't think it's fair to say that women aren't strong enough or aggressive enough to play mens' sports. Before transferring to Quinnipiac, I had a (female)roommate who was 6'4" and a hell of a basketball player. More than once, I watched her dominate some of the men's team players in pick up games. Obviously, she's an outlier in the general population of women. However, if a school decides to allow both genders to play a specific sport, I agree the only way to fairly allow it is to base it on performance. More often, that would work against women trying to play "men's" sports like football, for example, than it would prohibit a male trying to play field hockey.
That said, I don't think there should be mixed gender sports. Schools should make the upmost effort to assure that an equal number of similar sports are offered to both sexes. But this is one case where I believe in "separate but equal."
Ron made a great point about Michelle Wie trying to make the PGA tour. I think she should compete among women. People know she's good and they'll be more likely to tune into the LPGA to watch her, raising the ratings and status of women's golf. Besides, is she too good to play among her female competitors? Maybe skill wise she is. Still, as a female athlete fighting to make the PGA tour, Wie, in my opinion, is sending a negative message about women's sports- that it's not up to the caliber of skill or importance as men's sports.
That's my view on professional sports though- that exceptional female athletes should try and raise the bar on women's sports to make them equal to mens sports (in theory).
Aside from possible injury and social stigma, I don't think boys should be on girl's teams(and vice versa)for an entirely different reason. This may be a personal preference, but I wouldn't have wanted a boy on my team when I played softball in high school. I have a couple very close male friends, but there's something about team bonding with a group of women (as I'm sure is the same for a mens team) and I think having a teammate of the opposite gender would alter the dynamic. I enjoyed the relationships I had playing softball and knowing that the players were about the same level of skill as I and the entire social experience of it. I'm probably less competitive than the average athlete, but I have to wonder- if you start letting boys play girls sports in school, how many girls are you intimidating out of playing, or stealing a spot on a team b/c a male student is most likely a better athlete? I made a decent second basemen but I'm sure if a boy was trying out for the same position, he probably would have won it over me.
So letting sports become mixed does not necessarily mean greater equality for men and women. It could actually lead to a lot fewer female student athletes.
Overall I find the topic of mens and womens sports to be intriguing. It's actually quite comical when you listen to people compare the ability of female athletes to the ability of male athletes. It is true male athletes may be stronger, faster, etc. but those are not the only attributes necessary in completely playing a sport. I challenge all of the males in this class to watch a mens college basketball game and then watch a womens college basketball game. You will find that the men's game is much more uptempo and their will be many more "highlight reel" plays occuring. However, when the game slows down in the final two minutes, notice how often teams struggle in the half court. When you watch a women's game, notice how there is a lack for an uptempo style and how fundamentally sound the women are in the half court offense. You will actually see that women are more adept to running plays effectively and efficiently in order to compensate for "a lack of athleticism" in comparison to their male counterparts. I therefore would argue that the women's college game is actually basketball in its purest sense.
I don't think that women should be subject to solely playing female sports. If a woman was physically able to compete with the men then they should be allowed. I think this is more difficult to accomplish in high school especially during the times of preparing for games in the locker room. That is where the biggest problem is faced. Overall, I think there have been large strides made on issues of gender equality but there is still a long way to go, particularly in athletics.
My thoughts on equality in seemingly “gender-specific” sports are as follows: I think that it is alot easier to allow a girl to subject herself to the sometimes more physical and dangerous sports that are usually strictly for males, like football. It is more difficult, and in my opinion less acceptable, to allow a male who probably naturally has more strength, to play a sport like feild hockey with a bunch of females, ...and in a skirt. But then comes the question of whether or not it is a stereotypical thing to assume that the male has more strength than the girls on the team. I knew a girl growing up who played Pop Warner football in my town, and honestly, i was pretty jealous of her and if it wasn't so socially unacceptable, i might have traded in my pom poms for some shoulder pads. Its hard to draw a line determining when males can participate in female dominated sports and vice versa, because there is always going to be the issue of discrimination that our society loves so much. I think the only fair way to do it is to make a woman's football league so I can enter the draft.
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