Sociology of Sport Unit V Essay Critique

Sports in Society:

Issues and Controversies

Chapter 7

Gender and Sports: Is Equity Possible?

There are complex relationships between sports and the way

people think about masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, heterosexuality, & other aspects of gender and sexuality in society.

Gender ideology

 . . . interrelated ideas and beliefs widely used to define masculinity and femininity, identify people as male or female, evaluate forms of sexual expression, and organize social relationships

 Orthodox gender ideology = ideas and beliefs associated with this two-sex approach.  Using the word orthodox is meant to show that this view of gender

represents a traditional way of thinking that many people have internalized as unchanging “truth” and often linked to their religious beliefs or an overall sense of right and wrong.

 Gender ideology resists change, but it can and often does change as other parts of society change

Gender ideology in many societies is based on a two-category classification system that

 Assumes two mutually exclusive categories: heterosexual male and heterosexual female

 Presents these categories in terms of difference—as “opposites” across physiological, psychological, and social dimensions

 Leaves no space for those who do not clearly fit into one of the two categories

 Infers the subordination of women to men when it comes to power and access to power

A two category classification system for sex & gender: who is “natural and normal and

who is out of normative bounds?

Males have more access to power

Research across many scientific

disciplines shows that

 Biological sex is not manifested in either/or male/female terms—it is manifested across many traits in terms of shades of difference

 In most societies, people are forced into one sex category or the other, and if they don’t fit, they are socially marginalized

 Being classified in one or the other normative category limits possibilities for all people

Gender ideology

 A tool for maintaining the status quo

 Males are defined as superior in terms of

traits that are connected with status and

power

 Women are defined as inferior to men

except in their ability to nurture

 Leads social worlds to be

 Male-dominated

 Male-identified

 Male-centered

Gender (in)equity issues always exist

when sport cultures are:

 Male-dominated (i.e., ability and performance

qualifications are associated with masculinity)

 Male-identified (i.e., sports are a “man’ world”

that emphasizes values associated with men

and manhood)

 Male-centered (i.e., men and men’s lives are the

expected focus of attention in stories, legends,

and media coverage related to sports)

Facts about gender ideology

It is defined in ways that

 Give some men more access to power while restricting the range of behavior for all men

 Marginalize gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals by categorizing them as “out of normative bounds”

 Lead women to push gender boundaries while men are more apt to police gender boundaries for themselves and for women

Like many corporate cultures, sport cultures often are

organized to make women feel that they are not fully

valued for their abilities.

For women, pain and injury are simply the price of playing elite sport; for men, they are badges of masculinity . . . Sports is a gendered institution, whose values, symbols, and core audience are masculine, even with the rise of women’s sports and women athletic stars.

—Judith Lorber, professor emerita, City University of New York (2007)

Gender ideology in sports:

Girls and women as invaders

 Females in certain sports may threaten

traditional ideas about gender.

 Through history, myths have been used to

discourage participation by girls and women.

 Encouragement varies by sport, and whether

the sport emphasizes grace or power.

 Being a “tomboy” is okay as long as

traditional “femininity cues” are presented.

Through most of the 20th century gender ideology led to the exclusion of girls and women in sports.

Prior to the late-1970s most girls in schools had one or two “field days” each year to engage in sport activities.

For most of the twentieth century, few schools sponsored competitive teams for girls and

young women. Instead, they sponsored semi-annual “field days” or “sport nights” during

which girls could compete in running races and other field events or give skills

demonstrations to parents. Until the 1960s there were widely believed myths that vigorous

sports would harm the female body and make it difficult for a woman to conceive, carry, and

give birth to children.

Photo © Lisa Larsen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Girls and women did engage in physical activities during the early 20th century, but those activities usually emphasized

grace and beauty as the basis for “ladylike character.”

Ladies, not invaders

 When women wanted to play sports during most of the 20th

century, they often named their team “Ladies this” or “Ladies that,” and referred to themselves as “ladies” to defuse the threat they presented to men and male control of sport resources  This was especially prevalent in southern states where

men controlled women by identifying them as ladies who would always be “ladylike”—that is, subordinate to me, but taken care of by men.



 Today, the term “lady” does not come with these constraints—but “lady teams” continue to receive fewer resources than the men receive

Gender ideology leads to many strategies when seeking opportunities to play certain sorts—even today.

The most certain way for women to be on a basketball court in front of a sold out stadium game after game.

Photo by Dennis Coakley

Women’s professional sport leagues struggle to survive, including the professional-amateur mixed W-League supported

by the USL Soccer organization. Does orthodox gender ideology undermine professional women’s sports?

Photo by Jay Coakley

Mainstream Sports Reaffirm

Orthodox Gender Ideology

 Because gender is not fixed in biology, sports are key

sites for maintaining ideas and beliefs about male-female

differences

 Sex-tests for women are used to maintain the two-sex

classification system

 Sports, especially media sports, celebrate traditional

masculinity and the “natural power and emotional

fortitude” of males

 “Sport talk” and sport images often glorify a heroic

manhood based on being a warrior

 Some people use this to legitimize male power and dominance

in gender relations

Some men’s sports inspire fantasies of a heroic manhood in which masculinity is equated with being a “warrior.”

Many boys find this fantasy (temporarily) empowering

Photo by Jay Coakley

Sex testing:

a legacy of the two-sex system

Sport organizations (& public toilets) remains the last

bastion of enforced sex segregation in society

 This creates problems because objective

distinctions between male and female cannot be

made across all humans by using chromosomes,

hormones, or secondary sex characteristics—all of

which overlap among men and women.

 These problems have forced sport organizations to use a

succession of invalid tests to make sure women athletes

are females that fit their definitions.

 Caster Semenya was the latest of many victims of this

approach.

Caster Semenya winning the 800-meters. But aren’t most elite women athletes outliers when it comes to power, strength, and muscles?

The current IOC approach

to sex testing is

 Invalid

 Ethnocentric

 Discriminatory

 Unfair to women

 Psychologically harmful

 Based only on testosterone level

 Anti-inclusion

 Based on a double standard and

not applied to men for the sake

of fairness

Gender ideology

and other double standards in sports

What would happen if

 Tennis player Serena Williams beat up a man or a woman in a bar fight?

 A high-profile woman athlete bragged about having numerous sex partners?

 A WNBA player had arm tattoos expressing strength and dominance?

 The captain of the national women’s soccer team was photographed with near-naked men ogling and hanging on her?

Changes in gender ideology:

A prerequisite for gender equity

Changing gender ideology is crucial because

 Gender is a fundamental organizing principle of social life

 Gender ideology influences how we

 Think about and identify ourselves and others

 Form and evaluate relationships

 Present ourselves to others

 Develop expectations for ourselves and others

 Organize and distribute rewards in social worlds

Despite orthodox gender ideology, notable progress

toward gender equity has occurred since the 1970s

This progress is due to:

 Government legislation mandating equal rights (eg., Title IX in the U.S.)

 The global women’s rights movement

 The global health and fitness movement

 Increased media coverage of women in sports

Fairness and equity issues

revolve around

 Sport participation patterns compared

by gender

 Gender inequities related to

 Participation opportunities

 Support for athletes

 Jobs in coaching and administration

 Strategies for achieving equal

opportunities for girls and women

Title IX

No person in the United States shall, on

the basis of sex, be excluded from

participation in, be denied the benefits of,

or be subjected to discrimination under

any educational program or activity

receiving federal financial assistance.

— a law passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, signed by

President Richard Nixon, June 23, 1972

Title IX has benefited millions of girls and women.

It remains controversial among those who say that gender equity

is unfair because more males than females want to play sports.

Title IX requires compliance

with one of three tests:

 The proportionality test  A five percentage point deviation has

been okay

 The history of progress test  Judged by actions and progress over past

three years

 The accommodation of interest test  Programs and teams meet the interests

and abilities of the underrepresented sex

Title IX in the U.S. has

 Fostered major changes in sport participation opportunities available to girls and women

 Evoked continuous resistance since it became law in 1972

 Demonstrated that laws and law enforcement do not exist in a social and cultural vacuum

 Demonstrated that when laws challenge the ideas and lifestyles of people with power, the legitimacy and enforcement of those laws will be questioned

The global women’s movement and the health and fitness movement have opened some doors to women to play sports in various regions,

such as here in a village in Chiapas, Mexico

Photo by Tim Russo

Gender inequities remain

in the U.S. and worldwide

 Unfortunately, progress toward gender equity in U.S. sports seems to have stalled since the beginning of this century.

 Significant inequities remain in

 Participation rates and absolute numbers for males and females

 Support given to female athletes

 Access to power positions for women in sports

Categories of support for athletes:

 Access to facilities

 Quality of facilities

 Availability of

scholarships

 Program operating

expenses

 Recruiting budgets

 Scheduling of games and

practice times

 Travel and per diem

expenses

 Academic tutoring

 Number of coaches

 Salaries for all staff and

administrators

 Medical training services

and facilities

 Publicity for players,

teams, and events

On Brighton Beach in England, and in most other public spaces in which sports are played, men are more likely than women to claim that space. Women are also more likely to watch men than men are to watch women play sports. Gender ideology and the structure of opportunities go hand-in-hand when it comes to sports.

Photo by Jay Coakley

Facing football:

A challenge for equity strategies

High-profile football teams

 Involve more players and more

resources than any other sport team

 Promote a culture in which there is

resistance to gender equity

 Often are supported by boosters who

see gender equity as an obstacle to the

way they do things

When football is the cultural and structural centerpiece of a school and community, gender

inequities are likely to exist and persist over time.

Photo by Jay Coakley

Informal and alternative sports

 Organized around the values and experiences of boys and young men

 Participants say that inclusion is based on skills, guts, and aggressiveness, not gender

 Most girls and young women feel unwelcome in alternative sport cultures

Access to informal sport participation for females is usually afforded by a male—a brother or friend who serves as an advocate

Photo by Jay Coakley

Public skate parks have become male turf. To enter these spaces, a females often needs

a male advocate to “explain” her presence

Photo by Jay Coakley

When males shape norms and control access to participation, “playing like a boy” becomes a prerequisite for playing at all.

Photo by Jay Coakley

Access to informal

and alternative sports

Gender inequities also exist in player- controlled sports:  Girls and women may face greater access

challenges than are faced by boys and men  Boys and men often control access to these

sports, and they control access on their terms  Title IX does not apply to these sports

Question: Do the X Games perpetuate inequities related to access in these sports?

Roller derby teams are being formed by women seeking sport experiences on their own terms. The athletes embrace many ideas and beliefs about femininity.

The culture of roller derby is female-dominated, female-identified, and female-centered.

In percentage terms, women have lost ground relative to men as head coaches in NCAA Division I sports. As women’s sports have become more important, men are hired for a greater proportion of the jobs. At the same time, fewer than 3% of men’s college teams have women as head coaches

Coaching & administration:

Reasons for underrepresentation (I)

1. Women are not considered for half of all coaching

jobs—that is, for men’s teams

2. Women lack fully developed and effective

occupational networks to compete with men.

3. Search committees often have members who use

orthodox gender ideology to assess job applicants

4. Many women lack the support systems and

professional development opportunities that men

have had.

(continued)

Coaching & administration:

Reasons for underrepresentation (II)

5. Many women avoid careers in sport organizations that are male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered

6. Women experience more sexual harassment, which sets them up to fail or discourages them from seeking upward mobility in sport organizations

Women in National Olympic Committees & International Sport Federations, 2010

National Olympic International

Committees Sport Federations

Women in Executive Boards 18% 18%

Women Presidents 4% 3%

Women Secretaries General 9% 4%

Source: Henry & Robinson, 2010.

Note: Data are based on responses received from 110 of the 205 National Olympic Committees—a 54% response rate, and from 70% of the International Federations.

Women are underrepresented in decision-making positions in sports worldwide, and progress toward equity is very slow. Men do not give up power easily, nor do they want to change the male- dominated, male-identified, and male-centered culture of sports.

Barriers to gender equity

1. Budget cuts and privatization of sport programs

2. Resistance to government regulations

3. Few models of women in positions of power

4. A cultural emphasis on “cosmetic fitness” for women

5. Trivialization of women’s sports

6. Male-dominated/identified/centered sport organizations

Some men continue to have a difficult time taking female athletes seriously as athletes. Gender ideology appears to be deeply grounded in their psyche when it comes to sports.

Events for men have always outnumbered events for women in the Olympics

The Summer Olympic Games were totally dominated by men until the 1990s when women’s participation had increased due to global changes produced by the women’s movement that began in the 1960s.

Gender inequities are especially prevalent in the Paralympic Games, although there have been some positive changes in recent years.

The gendered choices faced by athletes are also faced by women who apply for

cheerleading and dance teams in men’s professional sports. The bodies of these

women are assessed to see if they meet specific physical criteria. If they do, they

will be allowed to try out. If these women had the power to choose how they are

included and represented in sports, would they choose this?

Photo: © Michele Eve Sandberg/ZUMA Press/Corbis

Gender Equity and Sexuality

 Sports have long been associated with male heterosexuality & the expression of homophobia.

 Growing rejection of orthodox gender ideology has led to a desire for changes

 Challenges for LGBTs continue to exist

 In some sports in certain cultural areas, these challenges are extreme

 LGBTs worldwide are careful to keep identities hidden

 If and when LGBTs come out, it is done strategically

Challenge of being

gay or lesbian in sports

 Popular discourse erases gay men and lesbians from sports.

 Gay men and lesbians have less freedom than heterosexuals when expressing sexuality.

 Being “out” in sports creates challenges:

 Women risk social acceptance

 Men risk social acceptance and physical safety

 Most people in sports support a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about homosexuality.

When Martina Navratilova came out as a lesbian in 1981 as a 25- year old, her character was attacked. She lost millions in endorsement deals and faced challenges from other players, fans, the media, and the general public.

But she initiated a conversation that was revived in 2013 and 2014. And she continues to participate in that conversation.

Homophobia =

. . . a generalized fear or intolerance of

anyone who isn’t clearly classifiable as a

heterosexual male or female.

 Homophobia is a powerful cultural factor that

affects everyone, because it creates fears and

pressures to conform to traditional gender

definitions, and silences all who are not

gender normative.

Intersex and Transgender

Persons in Sports

 Intersex and “trans” people have been ignored or routinely excluded from organized sports

 Intersex and trans athletes push gender boundaries and create confusion for those using orthodox gender ideology to make sense of the world

 Some sport organizations have taken on the challenge of creating rules that foster the inclusion of intersex and “trans” athletes

 The next challenge: how to include those who reject gender as an identity category

Strategies to Achieve Equity

 Using the law and engaging in grassroots activism

 Showing boys and men that they benefit from gender equity and recruiting them as allies in making changes.

 Changing the way we do sports

Strategies to promote

gender equity (I)

1. Confront discrimination and be an advocate for women coaches and administrators

2. Be an advocate of fair and open employment practices

3. Keep data on gender equity

4. Learn and educate others about the history of discrimination in sports and how to identify

discrimination (continued)

Strategies to promote

gender equity (II)

5. Inform media of unfair and discriminatory policies

6. Package women’s sports as revenue producers

7. Recruit women athletes into coaching

8. Use women’s hiring networks

9. Create a supportive climate for women in your organization

If the culture and social structure in Bangladesh are organized to prevent females from gaining power in society, this girl’s joy and sense of empowerment from winning this

race will be temporary and difficult to convert into the power to make needed institutional changes as an adult.

Strategies for changing

ideology and culture

There is a need for  Alternative definitions of masculinity

 Critically question violent and destructive behavior

 Alternative definitions of femininity

 Becoming “like men” is not the goal

 Changing the ways we do sports

 Focus on lifetime participation, supportive vocabularies, gender equity, and bringing males and females together to share sport experiences  Why aren’t varsity sports in schools organized around

gender mixed sports that people will play in the future?

Girls and women

as agents of change

Sport participation can empower women,

but

 This does not occur automatically

 Personal empowerment does not always

lead to an awareness of the need for gender

transformation in society as a whole

 Elite athletes seldom are active agents of

change when it comes to gender ideology

Elite female athletes seldom challenge

traditional gender ideology

1. Female athletes have much to lose if they are perceived as radical, feminist, or lesbian.

2. Corporation-driven “celebrity-feminism” focuses on individualism and consumption,

not everyday struggles related to gender.

3. “Empowerment discourses” in sports often are tied to fitness and heterosexual

attractiveness.

4. Women athletes have little control or political voice in sports or society at large.

Boys and men

as agents of change

Gender equity in sports is a men’s issue:

 It creates options for men to play sports that are not

based only on a power and performance model.

 It emphasizes relationships based on cooperation

rather than conquest and domination.

 It provides opportunities for boys and men to learn

how to maintain emotionally satisfying relationships.

Achieving full gender inclusion:

Where we are and where we need to go

1. Exclusion CURRENT PROGRESS CURRENT PROGRESS

2. Entry

3a. Revise culture 3b. Gain power

4. INCLUSION