Chapter 12 Sports

Chapter Introduction

Athletics is a central site for the production of masculinity and a place that excludes women. The sports watched by boys and men (pro football, men’s pro basketball, pro baseball, pro wrestling, men’s college basketball, college football, and Extreme Sports) show recurrent themes of gender. White males are the voices of authority; sports are a man’s world; women are sexy props and prizes for men’s successful sport performances; aggressiveness and violence win contests; violence is natural and manly.

Sports and Masculinity

Interviews with men about sports in their childhood revealed that sports seemed like something natural, “just what you did.” Fathers played key roles in bringing sons into the masculine sports world, and adult men taught boys that their worth depended on competing and winning. Participating in sports brought boys closer to fathers, brothers, and other men in their lives. Race and class differences affected boys’ experiences with sports.

Gay Athletes

The rule of heterosexuality is powerful within sports culture. Gay athletes, amateur and professional alike, fear discovery. Some men, increasingly today, have overcome the barriers to coming out. Institutional changes, such as the establishment of the Gay Games and the Gay and Lesbian Athletic Foundation, have helped to challenge homophobia in sports.

Initiation Rites

Men talk about childhood participation in sports as masculine initiation rights. Boys who do not play sports are often looked upon negatively. Sports provide initiation rights in other ways too. Football takes place in a male world and older men control the players’ training, exercise regimes, diet, dating, clothing, and study programs. Training, playing, showering, traveling, and eating take place with team members. The football world of boys is hierarchical. Injury and pain are part of the experience, and coaches urge players to “take their knocks” and “toughen up.”

Dangers of Masculinity

Masculine sports are hard on players’ bodies. Injuries, long-term disability, and even death are part of sports.

Time for a Change?

The connections between masculinity and sports are physically and psychologically damaging to men. Sports can also damage society through excessive competition and disregard of human bodies.

Children in Competitive Swimming

Research on children in elite, competitive swimming shows that coaches can be effective in dismantling gender stereotypes in sports if they do not segregate teams by gender and if they emphasize achievement over gender attributes. Musto found that, among the highest achieving swimmers on a mixed gender team, young athletes did not use gender to create divisions between themselves. Instead, they emphasized their own and others’ athleticism during structured practice time. In unstructured time, children would talk about gender distinctions but in non-hierarchical ways.

Sportswomen

Women want to participate in athletics to promote gender equality, to challenge the notions that women are clumsy and weak, and to create a new kind of woman who is equal to men on and off the playing field. Girl athletes have more positive attitudes about school, are high academic achievers, especially in the sciences, and are less likely to drop out of school. They have stronger self-esteem, lower rates of depression, and greater leadership capacity. They are less likely to smoke or to become pregnant in high school. Even though women athletes are still largely invisible in the media and media representation of women’s sports has declined since 2004, the participation of women in sports has skyrocketed. The increasing participation of women in sports has literally reshaped women’s bodies and athletic capacities.

Title IX

Bringing women into sports has been part of the feminist agenda around the world. In the United States, women’s participation in sports was given a significant push by passage of Title IX (see Chapter 5). Despite the impact of Title IX, spending remains greater on men compared to women in athletic programs. Some people argue that football and basketball take so much of the sports budget that other sports, both men’s and women’s, cannot be supported. Most college and university football and basketball teams do not yield profits for schools and cost more to operate than they recuperate through ticket sales. The vast majority of colleges are out of compliance with the law. Until recently, the underserved minority (women) had to prove their interest in attaining gender equity by voluntarily completing interest surveys. Despite these difficulties women have flooded into sports in the past few decades, and most people credit Title IX with having played a positive role in these changes. Title IX has had one ironic effect on gender equity: As women’s sports have gained support and numbers of participants, coaching and administration positions, which were previously nearly exclusively held by women, are now being taken by men

International Efforts to Bring Women into Sports

In 1995, the International Olympic Committee committed itself to implementing the following goals: 1) Pay attention to the importance of physical activity and sport in the lives of girls and women; 2) Increase opportunities for participation for girls and women in sports; and 3) Ensure that more women are in leadership positions in sport. Table 12-1 shows that the Olympics committee appears to be meeting its goals of greater equity and participation by women athletes.

Barriers to Bringing Women into Sports

Four problems remain in ensuring that women succeed in sports: sexual harassment and abuse; pressure to maintain a low body weight; homophobia; and heterosexism.

Women Athletes, Homophobia, and Heterosexism

Instead of being congratulated on their skills, women athletes are discredited for being “unnatural” women. Homophobia and heterosexism powerfully control women athletes. Women often respond to labeling with silence and by internalizing the stereotypes about lesbians, reducing their ability to form bonds that would enhance their social well-being as well as enhance the strength of their teams’ performance. Coaches, fundraisers, and others associated with promoting the team and the sports also police women athletes’ sexuality.

Venus and Mars Play Sports

Women and men both should be able to participate in athletics, but athletics also needs to be transformed into a more humane activity. Alternative versions of sports already exist, especially in women’s sports. The alternatives are called “participation sports” to distinguish them from the performance sports discussed in this chapter. Participation sports emphasize connections, not competition; promote enjoyment; express concern for teammates and opponents alike; include participants at many skill levels; and facilitate cooperation.

Assimilation or Reform?

Eric Anderson (2005) argues that there are two models for interactions between gay athletes and the dominant social order: assimilation, which involves a desire for inclusion in existing structures, and reform, the more radical position of wanting transformation of existing structures.

Short-Answer Essay Questions

1. How has the relationship of sports and masculinity changed in the past century?
2. How does football operate as an initiation rite into masculinity?
3. What has research on Mexican baseball players demonstrated about masculinity?
4. Name ways sports can be dangerous for men and healthy for women.
5. What is Title IX and how has it changed sports for women?
6. Has the Olympics committee met its goals of greater equity and participation by women athletes? How?
7. How do homophobia and heterosexism affect women athletes?
8. What are the assimilation and reform models of gay athletic interaction with the dominant social order?

Long-Answer Essay Questions

1. Discuss the differences between competitive sports and participation sports. How are these differences tied to gender? What do you think are the gains and losses associated with each type of athletic participation? Have you been involved in either one? Describe your involvement.

2. What are the barriers to bringing women into sports? What is facilitating women’s increasing participation in sports?

3. Attend an athletic event to observe how fans “do gender” while at the event. Are there gendered ways to watch the game or root for a team? Are there gendered shouts and sayings? Gendered snacks and ways of eating? Jot notes while there and write up your observations after the game.

Critical Thinking Exercises

1. How has the connection between masculinity and sports changed American cultural views of health and the body? Use examples from this chapter and from popular media about sports to consider gendered attitudes toward sports and their impact on ideas about healthy bodies.
2. We learn in Chapter 12 that women’s participation in sports has literally reshaped women’s bodies and athletic capacities. What does this suggest about gender and about bodies?
3. Homophobia is a factor in men’s and women’s sports. Using this chapter’s discussions and any outside sources you can find, discuss the differences between ways homophobia operates in women’s sporting environments and men’s. What do you think accounts for these differences? What effects do they have?

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Sports are often seen as a natural inclination of boys, but most men recall the encouragement of fathers and peers and stereotypes of non-athletic boys as sissies. Starting sports has therefor been liked to __________.
   1. sex-based testing
   2. an initiation ritual for masculinity
   3. a masculinity threat
   4. a masculinity cost
2. Which of the following is the best definition of Title IX?
   1. Federal legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in any federal program receiving federal dollars
   2. Federal legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in schools sports programs
   3. Federal legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in any school sport that is not privately funded/doesn’t generate income for a school
   4. Federal legislation that requires that sex-segregated activities in educational setting that receive public dollars, such as sports and residence halls, be equally funded.
3. Which of the following is true of sex testing in the Olympics?
   1. All athletes are required to undergo genetic sex testing.
   2. Only female athletes are required to undergo sex testing.
   3. Olympic athletes are no longer required to undergo sex testing.
   4. Only male athletes are required to undergo sex testing.
4. Cooky and Dworkin observe that sex testing in sports in based on 3 flawed assumptions. Which is NOT one of them?
   1. Sex exists as a binary
   2. Sex segregation allows for a level playing field
   3. Intersex athletes have an unfair advantage over women
   4. Women will be more vulnerable to injury if they compete with men.
5. Musto observed which of the following trends among children on mixed-gender competitive swim teams.
   1. Swimmers in the most elite group discussed their own and others’ athleticism rather than gender differences during structured practice time.
   2. Swimmers in the most elite group discussed gender differences but not gender hierarchies during unstructured time.
   3. Swimmers in the less advanced groups discussed gender difference during structured and unstructured practice time.
   4. All of the above are true.
6. Harper (2018) found that black men were around 55 percent of football and basketball players across 65 different colleges. They were ______ percent of the student body.
   1. Less than 3
   2. 7
   3. 13
   4. 26
7. Which of the following is true of regarding the 2018 Winter Olympic team from the U.S.?
   1. Women outnumbered men.
   2. Women won more medals than men.
   3. More women were disqualified for infractions like steroid use than men.
   4. All of the above are correct.
8. In 2015, the difference in median spending on college sports programs for men and women in the U.S. was ________ more spent on men’s sports.
   1. about $1 million
   2. about $5 million
   3. about $10 million
   4. about $15 million
9. Title IX has created more gender equity in sports, but in what area has it caused less gender equity?
   1. Physical education instruction at the elementary level
   2. Tennis: fewer women now play competitive tennis at the college level.
   3. Football: fewer men now play competitive football at the college level.
   4. Coaching and administration positions
10. In what way are homophobia and heterosexism found in women’s experience in athletics?
    1. Lesbians frequently gravitate towards athletics, which has led to a greater concentration in athletics of homophobia and heterosexism.
    2. Female athletic culture frequently takes on the rituals and practices of male athletic culture, including its heterocentric bias.
    3. There is a low rate of homophobia and heterocentrism among female athletes, but female coaches and athletic administrators demonstrate both tendencies frequently.
    4. Women athletes are often assumed to be lesbians and therefore unacceptable as real women.
11. Research suggests that female athletes may try to distance themselves for other female athletes who are unfeminine or who are lesbians by talking negatively about these women or emphasizing how they are different. What is this strategy called?
    1. Emphasized femininity
    2. Heterosexy-fit
    3. Defensive othering
    4. Gender essentialism
12. Since the passage of Title IX, the percentage of women’s college teams that have female head coaches has _________.
    1. doubled
    2. more than tripled
    3. remained the same
    4. fallen by more than 50%
13. To address gender inequality in sports, _________ desire greater inclusion for women within the existing structure of sports.
    1. Assimilationists
    2. Reformists
    3. Revolutionaries
    4. Both a. and b.
14. What does the concept of “the woman athlete triad” refer to?
    1. Conflicting expectations placed on female athletes that they be thin, strong, and nice.
    2. Three markers of ultimate success for professional woman athletes: a high salary, profitable endorsements, and athletic achievement
    3. The medical conditions of anorexia, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis which are associated with low body weight
    4. The three factors that make girls likely to continue playing sports into adulthood: starting early, private training, and avoiding injuries
15. Critics argue that most sports of gender segregated because the potential for women to be as fast or strong as men or to beat men in competition amounts to a masculinity threat, meaning ________.
    1. women are more likely to be injured
    2. sports will no longer confer masculinity on men
    3. men will feel that their masculinity has been taken away.
    4. Both b. and c. are correct.
16. What are the characteristics of power and performance sports?
    1. Highly competitive and organized
    2. Individual sports where athletes compete for times rather than face-to-face to score points
    3. Loosely defined and more informal sports
    4. Non-competitive, “conditioning” sports like weight-lifting or dance
17. What are the characteristics of participation sports?
    1. Highly competitive and organized
    2. Individual sports where athletes compete for times rather than face-to-face to score points
    3. Loosely defined and more informal sports
    4. Non-competitive, “conditioning” sports like weight-lifting or dance
18. Pascoe finds that one way boys and men police one another’s masculinity is through using homophobic slurs to label individuals and behavior. What does Pascoe call this?
    1. Masculinity costs
    2. Fag discourse
    3. Defensive othering
    4. Masculinity threats
19. Who was the first woman to run the Boston marathon?
    1. Kathrine Switzer
    2. Caster Semenya
    3. Sarah Attar
    4. Donna de Varona
20. What is emphasized femininity?
    1. Expressions of compliance, nurturing, and heterosexuality that are socially rewarded in women
    2. Efforts some female athletes may take to distance themselves from other female athletes who are deemed unfeminine or who are gay or assumed to be gay
    3. Contemporary expressions of female athleticism, like being strong and tough as well as cooperate and supportive of teammates
    4. The equation of femininity with some sports and institutions, e.g. the idea that ice skating and gymnastics are sports for women and girls