In the article, “I won, I’m Sorry”, Mariah Burton Nelson uses an anecdote in order to begin her article. Sylvia Plath’s attitude is one that is concentrated on conforming to men in order to make them feel comfortable and as the stronger sex. Burton Nelson then shifts to talk about women in sports and how these female athletes behave in order to fit into the gender roles people have become accustomed to. The anecdote is used in order to describe the way women will underscore themselves in order to fit into society’s definition of how a woman should behave.In order to frame her article, Mariah Burton Nelson uses the anecdote about the poet, Sylvia Plath, in order to demonstrate how women conform as a means to fit into gender expectations. This …show more content…
Female athletes, must be able to remain feminine and be of use to males, as seen through Plath’s mother’s description of her daughter who, “catered to the male of any age so as to bolster his sense of superiority”. The use of the word “cater” when describing the actions of Sylvia Plath, is used in order to demonstrate the correct way women should behave when around a male. This also allows the reader to obtain the sense that women are seen as fragile beings, submissive to men, and depend on male approval. Thus, in order to obtain all these things women tend to do anything, even alter themselves in order to make themselves more likable to men. The want for male approval, even from female athletes, can be seen through accounts by female athletes. The quote by one downhill skier, is used in order to introduce the way women yearn for male approval, “I love male approval. Most women skiers do. We talk about it often. There’s only one thing more satisfying than one of the top male skiers saying, “Wow, you are a great skier. You rip. You’re awesome”. Even though male athletes do not have to act in a specific way in order to gain approval, women constantly have to adjust themselves, in order to fit the role that describes them as feminine. It is for this reason that the reader can assume why women want male approval, as they …show more content…
The want to appear vulnerable can be demonstrated, through the quote, by Sylvia Plath’s mother when she says, “It was nicer, she felt, to have a boy first”. The submissive behavior, Plath depicts, allows the reader to assume that women are naturally accepting of having a man be depicted as the better gender. This can further be seen through the use of the word “nicer” when describing how Plath felt when loosing the contest to a male, describing it almost as an honor to lose to the young man. This type of submissive behavior can further be seen in commercials such as in the Avon commercial, as Jackie Joyner Kersee states, “You don’t have to worry about the shirt coming up or the skirt being too tight. It’s cooler, and it’s so feminine”. Femininity remains a concern for female atheists, which allows the reader to obtain a sense of vulnerability. This is because female sports wear has been modified in order to sculpt the female body, making female athletes’ main concern be to appear attractive to males. The reader can then assume, that the wearing of the skirt allows the athletes to obtain a more vulnerable appearance as they appear smaller, more constricted, and elegant. This concern for femininity in term takes the viewers’ attention from the sports away and focuses it on
There is finesse to her arguments, but they are not subtle. They do not need to be. They have the benefit of being right, the history of countless female athletes backing them, and the self assuredness from this to know that sometimes, you cannot simply press a point. You must hit it with a hammer. And that's what Heywood, her essay, and Title IX all do. In A world where the “female athlete triad” (eating disorders, exercise compulsion, and amenorrhea) are alive and well, female athletes need to know that they do not need to compete against themselves and their friends. It is enough to compete against the rest of the world. Heywood, as an athlete who experienced the female athlete triad, feels that she missed out on the true benefits of sports. Friendship, teamwork, and most importantly, “what the books call self esteem: feeling the warm sun on your face, walking across the field like a giant, feeling that just for a moment, the world belongs to you.” The fight to allow females to compete in sports has been won. Now, there is a new fight. To teach females in sports that they do not have to crush everyone else, to knock everyone else to the ground so they can be the one left standing. The new frontier for females will be an athlete who loves her sport, wants to win, and gives it her all, but doesn’t have to destroy herself or anyone else to do
Hult explains that in the era between 1890-1920, women physical educators were a tightly knit, dedicated group committed to a tradition of restricted competition, self-governance, and a feminine approach to individual and team sports. They believed that all girls and women should have the opportunity to participate and enjoy sport, not only the talented elite as in the competition-driven male philosophical structure (87). Play-days and sport-days with emphasis on team building games were a means of perpetuating an image of an ideal American female athlete: feminine, beautiful, strong, yet always 'aware of her delicate reproductive system' (89).
Before we told our daughters that they could be anyone, or anything they wanted to be, we told them that they could only be what was acceptable for women to be, and that they could only do things that were considered "ladylike." It was at this time, when the nation was frenzied with the business of war, that the women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League decided that they could do and be whatever it was that they chose. These women broke free of the limitations that their family and society had set for them, and publicly broke into what had been an exclusively male sport up until that time.
Another issue that the writer seemed to have swept below the carpet is the morality of women. First, women seemed to have been despised until they started excelling in mass advertising. Also, the author seems to peg the success of the modern woman to clothing and design. This means that women and cloths are but the same thing. In fact, it seems that a woman’s sex appeal determine her future endeavours, according to the author. It is through this that I believe that the author would have used other good virtues of women to explain
Kim Addonizio gives stereotypes a whole new meaning by closely looking into the most typical clichés there are. Out of the many clichés, she touches the lust for that one tight; flimsy, cheap, revealing dress. These clichés' scorn women for wanting to wear a dress that may be too revealing looks cheap or looks “too” tight. Many women are subjected to this stereotype because it “typically” doesn’t conform to others’ opinions. She mentions this in her poem by saying “ I want a red dress./I want it flimsy and cheap,/I want it too tight, I want to wear it/until someone tears it off of me.” (1-4). Addonizio
Diana is an excellent illustration of the many struggles of women to find a place for themselves in sports. On an individual level, defying societal stereotypes is extremely difficult. The buriers that the first person must overcome are often extreme. However once the first person breaks down those buriers, it becomes increasingly easier for others to follow in their footsteps. Diana's struggle demonstrates both how far women have come and how far women still have to go.
The film “A League of Their Own,” depicts a fictionalized tale of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. This league was started during World War II when many of the Major Leagues Biggest stars were drafted to the war. MLB owners decided to start this league with hopes of making money while the men were overseas fighting. Traditional stereotypes of women in sports were already in force before the league even begins. One of the scouts letts Dottie, one of the films main characters she is the perfect combination of looks as well as talent. The scout even rejects one potential player because she is not as pretty as the league is looking for even though she is a great baseball player. The player, Marla’s father said if she was a boy she would be playing for the Yankee’s. Eventually Mara’s father is able to convince the scout to take Marla to try outs because he raised her on his own after her mother died. Her father says it is his fault his daughter is a tomboy. In this case the film reinforces the traditional stereotype that mothers are in charge of raising their daughters and teaching them to be a lady, where fathers are incapable of raising girls to be anything other than a tomboy. The focus on beauty also reinforces the traditional stereotype that men will only be interested in women’s sports when the females participating in
“The past three decades have witnessed a steady growth in women's sports programs in America along with a remarkable increase in the number of women athletes (Daniel Frankl 2)” From an early age women were thought to be “Lady Like”; they are told not to get all sweaty and dirty. Over 200 years since Maud Watson stepped on the tennis courts of Wimbledon (Sports Media Digest 3); women now compete in all types and levels of sports from softball to National racing. Soccer fans saw Mia Hamm become the face of women’s soccer around the world, Venus and Serena Williams are two of the most popular figures in tennis, and Indy car racing had their first woman racer, Danika Patrick. With all the fame generated by these women in their respective sports, they still don’t receive the same compensation as the men in their respective sports fields.
Within todays sporting community, certain aspects of sport and its practices promote and construct ideas that sport in general is a male dominated. Sports media often provides an unequal representation of genders. Women athletes are regularly perceived as mediocre in comparison to their male equivalents (Lenskyj, 1998). Achievement in sport is generally established through displays of strength, speed and endurance, men usually set the standards in these areas, consequently woman rarely reach the level set by top male athletes. Due to this, the media significantly shows bias towards male sports while we are ill-informed about the achievements in the female sporting community. On the occasion that a female athlete does make some form of an appearance in the media, images and videos used will usually portray the female in sexually objectified ways (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). This depiction of female athletes can cause males to take focus solely on the sexual assets of the athlete in preference to to their sporting abilities (Daniels & Wartena, 2011). Sexualisation of sportswoman in the media is a prevalent issue in today’s society, it can cause physical, social and mental problems among women of all ages (Lenskyj, 1998).
Krane, V. (2001). We can be athletic and feminine, but do we want to? Challenging hegemonic femininity in women's sport. Quest, 53,115-133.
The first perspective is that women are disadvantaged at any sport. Some people reiterate the difference of men and women in sports. This is influenced by strength and the natural power men hold, comparable to women. Rodriguez questions “Is this because female athletes don’t have what it takes to make it in the world of sports or could it be more of a social issue?” This perspective seems to be a social issue based on the notable skills women acquire vs. the apparent judgments of gender issues. The second perspective is the idea that women deserve and inherently earn their right of equal attention and equal pay. “Sometimes, the secret to equality is not positive discrimination, it 's equal terms. It 's the shrug of the shoulders that says "what 's the difference?" The moment worth aspiring for is not seeing people celebrate the world-class female cricketer who competes at comparatively low-level male professional cricket, but the day when people are aware that she does, and don 't find it notable at all” (Lawson). Lawson makes it a point to confirm the biased notions against women in sports and relay an alternative worth working toward and fighting for. Both outlooks can be biased but only one has factual evidence to back it up. The second perspective reviews an ongoing gender issue. This problem is welcome for change depending on society’s
In some ways, women today face more pressure to be perfect than ever before in history. The feminine ideal of the past has been replaced by a new face — stronger and more independent, but under no less pressure to conform to society's expectations than her predecessors. Today's woman must be all that she was in the past, and more. In addition to being beautiful, feminine, and demure, she must also be physically fit and academically and socially successful. It is no longer appropriate for a woman to depend on anyone, for that would imply subordinance and inferiority. Instead, woman must fill all of these roles on her own. Although achieving independence is an important step for women, it brings added pressure. This is especially visible in films about women in sport. These women experience these pressures at an intense level. They are expected to be phenomenal athletes, and are not held to a lower standard than men. However, they must also be beautiful — if they are not, they face the possibility of discrimination. Added to this is the pressure that they are representative of the entire gender. Films about women in sports show the intense pressure on female athletes to fulfill all aspects of the ideal woman.
...on about women in sports advertisements, and gives the opinion that athletes are sexualized in advertisements. I’ve learned that many women’s sports advertisements support and emphasise the idea that beauty comes from strength and athleticism, but some advertisements brush off an athletes accomplishments in order to make them beautiful or sexual. I think that women will be portrayed in sports advertisements and other advertisements the way people are comfortable and used to seeing them be portrayed. Things that I still haven’t learned from my sources are how men are portrayed in sports advertisements and if there are any stereotypes about female athletes. A new question I have is what does it mean to be sexualized or objectified, and does this happen to female athletes? Next, I want to see how men are portrayed in sports advertisements, and if they are masculinized.
Whether its baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or tennis, sports is seen all over the world as a representation of one’s pride for their city, country, and even continent. Sports is something that is valued world-wide which has the ability to bring communities together and create different meanings, beliefs and practices between individuals. Although many people may perceive sports to have a significant meaning within our lives, it can also have the ability to separate people through gender inequalities which can also be represented negatively throughout the media. This essay will attempt to prove how gender is constructed in the sports culture while focusing on female athletes and their acceptance in today’s society.
The Applicant by Sylvia Plath reveals the characteristics that are longed by men through personification and other poetic devices. The poem suggests that women need to be visibly pleasing and all around perfect in order to please and benefit men. Women have always been objectified in society, and this poem portrays that by substituting the word “woman” for “it”. As if a women does not even get to have a respectable label and instead is placed among objects. Bit by bit, parts of the poem represents evidence for this theory.