Masculinity In Sports Rhetorical Analysis

Success in sports is, arguably, the determining factor of overall success and public admiration of a man today. We find that many men look to the athletic world as a means of escape, liberation, or fulfillment of their lives. While all this may be true, there are many costs associated with the game, both health and relational, and just about everyone who aspires to this type of success falls victim to these costs. However, despite the fact that many are fully aware, they seem to have little weight in people’s decision to pursue a professional athletic career. On the other hand, this ignorance is justified as some see the costs as just part of the job, and as Michael A. Messner suggests in his essay, “Sport and Gender Relations: Continuity,
However, the connection between the relationships with others versus “the crowd” is debatable because it is possible the feeling is more personal, rooted in primary familial dynamics. Perhaps, rather than an otherwise vague connection with a group of people, these athletes quite simply see other athletes as individual challengers to their own masculinity. As a result, we can argue that this is what drives them to become so competitive on the playing field, not so much to please the crowd, but to show everyone on the field and in the crowd their true hegemonic masculinity. Admittedly, there have been instances which I personally recall as pure demonstrations of masculinity on the playing field, especially in front of a crowd. It would be most common to see players, typically ones of higher “importance” on the team simply walk off the field in the event of an injury only to succumb to the overwhelming amount of pain once on the sideline. Regardless, this type of masculinity, as defined by Becky Beal in “Alternative Masculinity and Its Effects on Gender Relations in the Subculture of Skateboarding”, is “the most powerful form of masculinity” (Beal 61) and a result of athletes choosing to pursue success through sports. Similarly, Kimmel contributes to this definition of masculinity in establishing it as, “a man in power, a man with power, and a man of power” before going on to mention that “We equate manhood with being strong, successful, capable, reliable, in control”, which coincides with everything athletes believe they might achieve through their athletic success. Thus, we can assume that any athlete, in their fight toward athletic success, hopes to prove their masculinity through not only the newfound strength, capability, authority developed in the sports world, but most importantly their fulfilled dreams of