Women In Sports Essay Research Paper Women

Women In Sports Essay, Research Paper

Women in Sports, the Paradigm Shift from Taken-for-Granted to Critical Thinking

Doctor Chandler Gilman once said, In women, inferiority of the locomotive apparatus of physical labour, is apparent in all parts The brain is both absolutely and relatively smaller than in men. Women have an abundant supply of soft and semi-fluid cellular tissue which creates softness and delicacy of mind, low power, nonresistance, passivity and under favourable circumstances, a habit of self-sacrifice. This is one of many taken-for-granted beliefs, which was typical in the past and seen quite frequently up to thirty years ago. Throughout history, women actively participated in sports in a patriarchal society and the viewpoint was that women were depicted as weaker and not as capable of physical activity, that their role in sports was limited to spectatoring. Women thirty years ago and to this current day, are fighting to shred off taken-for-granted assumptions of women not capable of physical activity, and to observe females in a new critical light, that they are equal to their male counterparts in sports. To see the paradigm shift from the taken-for-granted to critical, it will be shown through the historical, present and different and new ways to keep on thinking critically, in order to maintain a future of women in sports. As well there will be a discussion throughout on the re-thinking of my personal assumptions of women in sports, all of this will attempt to prove that women have certainly come a long way in the last thirty years and will continue to reach new heights from a critical perspective.

Throughout much of history, women have been perceived as inferior to men and have been denied access to equal opportunities in most social institutions, including sport. The study of female involvement in sport reveals an interesting example of social change, both within and across cultures. This social change has involved cultural definitions of femininity; the normative behaviour expected of males and females in all social institutions; the number and kind of sport opportunities provided to women, compared with men; and varying rates of cultural change across societies. So what is the history of women s involvement in sport. The reason and occasions for participation have varied from religious festivals to symbolic achievements of adulthood to recreation for health and fun. In the past women were forbidden to participate in or to even view the Olympic Games of ancient Greece, therefore women established their own program of sports competition, which they named the Heraen Games after Hera, the wife of Zeus. It was considered tolerable for women to keep healthy in order to be good breeders. The glories of true athletic success were reserved for the men of ancient Greece, and the winners became religious, political and cultural heroes. Women were not part of what was considered to be real sport but were sporting nonetheless. In the American colonial experience, a similar pattern emerges of women s participation. Women were restricted by the patriarchs of their communities in the games they could play, but evidence from journals, diaries, letters, and newspapers of the times indicates that the ladies of some wealth included dancing, spectatoring of horse and boat races, skating, sleighing, kolven and golf. The physical activities were socially defined as different from those of men. One activity shared by both sexes was horseback riding. The game of cricket for women emerged in the 1700s, and there is some evidence that colonial women held foot races.

The next part of history that is to be investigated is the mid-ninetieth century Victorian era, in which the arguments against female participation in sport are often based on a set of beliefs. Victorians believed that the ideal woman should perform her patriotic duties of attracting a mate, bearing and rearing children, and serving her husband. Any social activity that might restrict or interfere with these responsibilities was discouraged or prevented. Medical and journalistic opinions perpetuated the myth of the frail female, and early feminists argued that to sweat and strain was unfeminine. To further elaborate on the medical opinion of the past, early medical practitioners thought sport posed hazards for the weaker gender. Lenskyj (1984) cites this turn-of-the-century opinion: Kenealy, a female doctor, commented in 1899 on: the passing of a dainty, elusive quality in the face of the athletic woman, whose bicycle face was characterized by muscular tension where formerly there had been sympathy and tenderness. The arguments were primarily based on two unfounded sets of beliefs. First, people drew on physiological, biological, and medical opinions (usually expressed by males) that sport was harmful to women. Second, people sought to perpetuate culturally based definitions to ideal feminine dress and behaviour. Women often sanctioned these definitions. These beliefs resulted in stereotypes that became part of the informal gender-role socialization process of succeeding generations. These stereotypes governed women s involvement in sport. Sometimes these beliefs were institutionalized as bizarre local laws. For example, it is illegal, according to local law, for women in Nacogdoches, Texas, to wink at men at a track meet. In Colby, Kansas, a woman cannot wear a hat while playing golf. In Joplin,