Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeSportsThe Increase of Women in Traditionally Male-Oriented Sports

The Increase of Women in Traditionally Male-Oriented Sports

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Numerous invisible laws govern athletics, just like our society, laws which play a major part in the persuasion of children in their physical activity from a young age.
Implicitly, these laws claim a silent subtle persuasion that is that only the foundation of the many ideas of what it means to be a man or woman in athletics.
These ethics aren’t and cannot be left on the field because they are a major reason why the two may never be seen as equal.
Young girls have traditionally been taught to accept the roles cut out for them, like and gymnastics while young men are on the football and soccer fields strengthening their intolerance of pain or sympathy by ‘sucking it up’ or getting back out there, not always by choice, but because it’s what men do.
They accept pain.
They fight to have dominion over other boys, they lead by the power that they have in sports and indulge in ‘manhood,’ an idea which they will subconsciously carry with them for the rest of their lives.
But while this notion of power is and has been widely accepted, it is painstakingly obvious that women haven’t yet developed the kind of confidence which has been systematically instilled in the male population for years.
This is one of the many things that has attributed to the poor body – and self-image that girls develop and sustain during adolescence.
These roles, which have been easily accepted in the past, are becoming harder and harder to sustain their invisibility as society has begun to break down gender roles, teaching children, as well as adults, to accept the choices they make in school, relationships and athletics, based on their admiration , and not on their sex.
Today the urge is now greater than ever to break down centuries of gender roles that have governed the difference in ethics between boys and girls.
Movies like ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and ‘Unnecessary Roughness,’ as well as the attention paid to Mia Hamm in women’s soccer, the WNBA and title nine, which equalizes funding for both men and women’s sports in the collegiate level, has and is giving women the power to flip gender binaries and transfer the same changes that have already taken over the workplace, allowing women to reach the top and them to not be held hostage under a glass ceiling.
Personally, I remember wanting to play Powder Puff football during my senior year at Upland High.
It was an organized event put on by the school only once year, where the senior women would face the junior women.
Any junior of senior guy that was willing would be a cheerleader and each team would be coached by members of the varsity football team.
It seemed like the perfect event to wrap up senior year.
But my dreams of playing were short lived.
‘Football is not for girls,’ my mother said. And that was that. No football for me.
Looking back on the experience, I’d have to say that my interest in playing was led by the curiosity that has captivated me as a woman athlete for years; Why does ‘football’ or any male-oriented sport hold so much importance?
In some instances, women are handed their responsibilities in life, and are raised to breed and enforce these goals on their daughters.
Yet boys, in a sense, get to prove that they can control their own destiny, whether on or off the field.
It’s like they get this opportunity to decide who does what, and who will be what