Gender In Sports

Drew Brothers
Mr. Berry
Intro To College Writing
13 October 2014
My audience includes anyone who is involved in sports, the genders of both men and women.
Sports Media and the Stereotyping Between Men and Women The sport industry is nothing less than the pastime of America. Millions of viewers tuned in everyday to receive updates and news on their favorite sports team or even players. Nationwide networks and even local sporting stations broadcast anything from the more popular sports such as football, baseball, and basketball, to the less familiar and far less attractive sports such as volleyball, rugby and even lacrosse. From there, you then see the differences of gender roles and the popularity issues within each and every sport. Gender
stereotypes are seen in and out of everyone’s daily life, they show the unrealistic observations and countless differences between the abilities of both men and women.
Kathy Pollitt in “Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls” states that, “women often complain about their sons’ passion for sports: the ruined weekends, obnoxious coaches, and macho values” (Pollitt 556). Boys paradoxically have a far greater chance of playing sports and excelling at those due to more opportunities and the focusing on those benefits at very early ages. Why you may ask? Because sports media portrays the sports, that men participate in, to be far more interesting to watch and easier to write about in articles that are published throughout the nation. Boys read about these headlines at early ages and begin to wonder if they can produce a career in the highly popular sports world that we, as Americans, live in to this day. For example, 21.5 million boys played on a sports team between the ages of 6 and 17, compared to only 9.5 million girls playing on an organized sports team
(Kelley and Carchia). Why are the rates so significantly different? Why do boys participate over twice as more than girls and at such early ages as well? This brings in the immaculate effect that sports media plays on the youth of America and popularity of the sport world itself. The youth of a new generation focus severely on sports and the media advocates that, “men’s sports are more important and far more interesting” (Evelyn Shoop). The media focuses intensely on the sports of the male gender race, which women don’t even have somewhat of an opportunity to appear on television or the radio unless something historically significant occurs such as Brittney Griner, professional women’s basketball player, gets drafted into the NBA and becomes the first women to participate in a men’s professional sport or even Alex Morgan, professional women’s soccer player, scores the most goals ever in a World Cup championship match. I would love to see the focus of sports media become increasingly more involved within the sports of women, who ultimately make up most of our population. Societal differences between the two genders would decline and we would perceive one another as an equal race and eventually conform. Kathy Pollitt also stated that, “you’ll find that for every kid who fits a stereotype, there’s another who’s breaking one down” (Pollitt 557). If we could unite as a nation and eliminate the stereotypes between men and women, then ultimately we could enjoy sports through a completely revolutionized perspective and begin to appreciate all sports ranging from baseball (America’s pastime) to the far less popular sporting events such as track and field and even cross country. Women’s sports deserve more attention and acceptance than currently given in today’s society and portrayed through the media of sports. Sports are all around us and are considered historically important, so why should we still allow the inequality to be deemed as fair and fallacious? The sports media needs to appreciate women’s sports as they are offered; women can physically do anything that a man can do at a given sports event. For example, women can dribble a basketball, throw a football, pass a soccer or rugby ball, and swing a baseball bat. Women can physically do anything that a man can do, but you might then say, how many women have ever dunked on a regulation ten foot basketball goal; the answer to that question is three professional women’s basketball athletes, Brittney Griner, Lisa Leslie, and Candace Parker. So I begin to ask once more, what is the differences between the female and male genders in the sports world? The simple answer to that is absolutely nothing, differences in the sports world should no longer be apparent in our American society. Gender stereotypes are seen throughout the history of America, and especially noticed in the highly popular sports world.
Men will always take the dominant role in society and women will always take the caring, loving role but their roles in the sports world can forever unite when sports media interprets them as equal and animate, and women begin to gain further publicity, purpose, and acceptance into the world of sports. Women are underappreciated in sports media and although they show the same abilities as the overrepresented male gender, they continue to gain less and less support. Women, the majority of the American population as a whole, physically can dunk a basketball, crush a homerun to deep center field, throw a 50 yard touchdown to win a playoff football game, or even score the game winning goal to clinch the World Cup victory over a foreign country, so let’s take a moment to finally appreciate the female race and respect them for their abilities and physical
attributes.

Stylistic Choice Based on Pollitt’s Essay I chose this essay to integrate the obvious differences between the male and female gender. I used it to also convey a point to differentiate between male and female’s participation within the sport world. Pollitt’s essay points out the countless arguments regarding how much two genders can be the complete opposites in so many ways. I chose to base my arguments as well, off of her arguments and go more into depth with the gender discrimination in the sports industry.

Sources Cited Page
Bruce Kelley and Carl Carchia |. ""Hey, Data Data -- swing!"" ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Shoop, Evelyn. The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.