Essay On Femininity In Sports

The teenage years are a sea of change, rife with angst, disorientation and discovery. “Early adolescence is a time of physical and psychological change, self-absorption, preoccupation with peer approval and identity formation”. Why is that teenagers are no longer discovering sports? As I have recently been chosen as a sport leader at Wellington High School, I thought it was appropriate to look at why sports participation at my school is so low. Sport is a necessary ingredient in having a healthy, happy life. As a growing number of young people are opting out of sport, actions need to be made to try and combat this.

Femininity in sport
Teenage girls still think sports are unfeminine. Sadly, there is still a belief in high schools today that it is not “cool” for a girl to be a jock. Sadly, it is still mostly true today. High school girls interviewed by Roselind Wiseman for her best selling book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, said girls can be athletic and have high social status but only if they have thin, "feminine" bodies, and that a large, "masculine" build was unacceptable (which is why
This may drive people away from sports such as athletics and water sports where people may not feel comfortable wearing togs or crop tops as they have not yet reached their “ideal body weight” or they do not have “the bikini body”. The media plasters these photos of fit, toned, scantily clad women. There is a strong correlation between exposure to the thin ideal body image in mass media to body dissatisfaction, eating disorders and internalisation of the thin, toned body regularly seen in the media among women. Women are not alone in body dissatisfaction as a result of the media. Pressure from the media through images of ripped, toned and muscular bodies is related to body dissatisfaction among men. This in turn, reduces sports participation for fair of what others may think of their