The Wrestling Room
As I sit here with my eyes closed, I imagine a tropical breeze. The warm wet air slides over my face. The humidity seems almost heavy enough to crush me. As I take a deep breath, the realization that this is no tropical air comes crashing in. Instead of the refreshing scent of the ocean, or tropical plants, the taste of salt from sweat and a smell of the human body fill my lungs. The daydream is over. A shrill whistle sounds and the voice of coach Chuck booms through out the room, breaking the peace that was comforting the pain in my shoulder and bringing me back to reality. I was not on some humid island paradise, but rather in the explosive atmosphere of the Hotchkiss High School wrestling room.
The Hotchkiss High School Wrestling room, though bland through out most of the year, transforms during the winter sports season. By itself, the room is nothing. It could be used for many things, but happens to be the perfect size and shape for a wrestling mat to be laid down with a little room on either side. What makes the room so significant is not the shape, size, color or any other dimension. It is the people; the atmosphere during a wrestling practice that makes the room so infamous.
Wrestling practice is dreaded all day as one drags from one class to the next, checking the clock frequently, though it will inevitably come. After the last bell of the day rings, I know that I could just skip practice, but I cannot let myself slack like that. As much as I do not want to I make the long trek to the locker room, and my mood begins to change.
As I slip out my day's cloths, and step onto the scale I find that I am five pounds over. After some quick math in my head, I figure that I will be down to weight by ...
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.... I hate coach for making us run them, but I understand that he wants nothing more than for us to be the best that we can be.
There is only one thing that is worse than wrestling practice, and that is having to sit out at wrestling practice. When I hurt my shoulder and couldn't wrestle, I wanted nothing more than to be on the mat with my teammates. No matter how hard, painful, or stressful wrestling may be, it means more to me than just being comfortable for those two hours. A sheer feeling of accomplishment surrounds a wrestler after removing completely soaked work out gear after practice. The discipline that it takes to be a member on the mat is something I will always have the utmost respect. Although I may always hate humidity because of it for the rest of my life, I will forever carry the discipline that the Hotchkiss High School wrestling room has given me.
I have many things that I love in this life, one of those things is wrestling. I have been wrestling for seven years and I have developed quite the passion and love for it. Wrestling has always been an interesting sport for me. Growing up in Oregon I watched my uncles wrestle in high school. I watched both of them win their state tournament in their respective weight classes, this is one of my fondest memories of my childhood. One of them went on to wrestle division one, I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. I looked up to my uncles and wanted to be just like them. I did not always wrestle though. The process of pursing my dream as of becoming a wrestler started of with basketball, then went to a rocky start, then being on Worland High School wrestling team.
Modern feminists might gasp if I assert patriarchy once allowed efficient economic organization, but the tools of modern political economy unveil the mystery of why inegalitarian gender norms were once economically efficient. Evolving modes of production and material constraints necessitate an efficient division of labor guided by socialized gender norms that adapt to economic macroconditions. Gary Becker and Torben Iversen understand an economic division of labor differently given their different historical-material conditions. In his “Theory of the Allocation of Time,” Becker models an ideal economic division of labor with the household as a single entity seeking maximum utility. Men specialize in marketable skills due to a comparative advantage in hard labor; women specialize in general household skills and motherhood. Iversen’s concept of an efficient division of labor does not view the household as a single entity and instead views the individual as the basic economic unit—less gendered social norms result. Thus, as society evolves from agricultural to industrial and then to postindustrial modes of production, gender norms adapt to society’s needs and wants to yield efficient divisions of labor. When material macroconditions advance, households restructure gender norms and behavior out of demand for a more efficient division of labor. In this paper, I argue the evolution of the modes of production alters power dynamics in household bargaining, which force gender norms to conform to market demands for a revised division of labor.
From the beginning of time, before there were written records, scholars believe that men wrestled. "Moreover, almost every known ancient people participated in some form of the game" (History of Sports 14). Originally, men were required to use wrestling skills to defend themselves from beasts of the field and other men. It is from this prehistoric way of life that wrestling was created. From this, men began to practice and create new holds and moves to improve upon the sport. They begin to compete with each other just as young brothers and sister's fight and grapple. So did the people of ancient times. This way of life, protection, and amusement, through growth, progressed into the magnificent sport of wrestling.
Jessica Grose’s article “Cleaning: The Final Frontier” was published by the New Republic in 2013. Grose acknowledges that when it comes to cleaning in a household, the distribution of cleaning is unfair between both gender roles. In the beginning she explains how household chores should be equal between the wife and the husband. She goes into talking about how women work more than their male partners. Grose argues that men do not do enough cleaning and that they are the problem, but she contradicts herself and later realizes that men are not the problem, women are. She starts her article with effective appeals, strong credibility and facts about men not doing their share but later her argument becomes ineffective and loses her argument at the end.
Sociological study on the gendered division of labour within the domestic sphere has perennially been characterised by evidence of a clear inequality concerning the allocation of unpaid chores within the home between men and women (Warren, 2003:734). While men have traditionally been regarded as primary breadwinners, the management of home-maintenance has remained largely women’s responsibility (Breen & Cooke, 2005:47). A number of theories exist to explain this unequal distribution of domestic labour, in particular the economic exchange model (which argues that women perform domestic duties in ‘exchange’ for financial support from their husbands), and the gender display model, which asserts that household labour is divided on the basis of the symbolic importance of gender (Baxter, 2002:401). While this paper will argue the inherent features of both models, it will also discuss the importance of gender stereotypes in maintaining the unequal distribution of household labour, despite women’s increasing involvement in the workforce. The paper will also demonstrate that the issue of a gendered division of labour holds great significance for sociological study, particularly surrounding issues of power, dominance and authority in the gender regime.
...ve. You cut too much weight for too long and you don 't want to wrestle anymore. The fun is gone and dread and hatred sets in. I’ve seen it happen and i have experienced it myself. Id go to practice with one thing on my mind, lose this much weight today and this much weight tomorrow, didn 't care if i got better just that i lost the pounds.
Gender roles play a large part within a marriage as well. As explained in our text, there are many roles for men and women involved in the beginning a marriage. Just in the act of courting and proposal, common customs include bride service (man must work for his bride’s family either before or after marriage), bridewealth (goods presented by the groom’s kin to the bride’s kin to seal a marriage), or the giving of a dowry, in which the bride’s kin gives the groom’s kin goods (Nanda, Serena, and Richard L. Warms 161-162). Within American society, the gender roles are quite stratified. Although times are changing, there is still a great deal of stress put on women to stay in the home and for men to be the breadwinners. This is related to what our text calls the private/public dichotomy, in which women’s status is lowered due to their association with childbearing and homemaking while men’s status is heightened by being linked with power and economy (Nanda, Serena, and Richard L. Warms 192). This also relates to the “How to be a Good Wife” scenarios we read for class, in which a 1950’s housewife is compared to a modern housewife. These scenarios prove just how much has changed within the last half-century or so pertaining to women’s rights. However, while women in the workplace are much more common nowadays, there is still a very heavy weight put on wives to be both mothers and working women. As discussed in Society: The Basics, by John Macionis, many working mothers today experience what is known as the “second shift”: “As women have entered the labor force, the amount of housework women do has gone down, but the share done by women has stayed the same…[women] do significantly more housework than men” (Macionis, John J. 281)...
Throughout history, psychologists have made hundreds of attempts to define intelligence and measure it precisely. However, none of these attempts have been accepted by all because Intelligence is so broad. Intelligence has been defined by many things, by Weschler, who made the most used psychological test today, as “the global capacity of a person to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.” However, while he may have created the most successful test, his definition is not the only definition of intelligence, for psychologists such as Gardner, believed that there was more than just knowledge to intelligence, and Sternberg, who defined intelligence as “mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real-world environments relevant to one’s life.” Intelligences has been measured in a variety of ways throughout psychologists, however because intelligence is such a broad concept, there is no single definition and method of testing it.
Ever since the previous season I had my standards set high. I had placed fifth, which was all right for the time being, but I knew as time went on I needed to push myself and increase my level of wrestling. I decided that I would do whatever it took, through thick and thin. I traveled to small local tournaments in Colorado, and a couple out-of-state tournaments, I even traveled to Delaware. It didn't really matter how I did at these tournaments because it was just all practice until February. So, I lifted and wrestled just about every chance I got. It was all in preparation for one match, six minutes.
Webster’s dictionary defines intelligence as, “The ability to learn and understand.”[1] This is a very broad definition and allows for as much interpretation as the concept we are trying to define. Furthermore, this definition fails to account for the full range of cognition that the human brain is capable of. Webster’s definition does not account for the critical aspects of emotion, free will and personality.
Two major schools of thought on the nature of intelligence. The first, supported by such psychologists as Eysenck, Galton, Jensen, and Spearman, believe that all intelligence comes from one general factor, known as g. The proponents of the other school of thought include Gardner, Sternberg, and Thurstone. These psychologists think that there is more than one general type of intelligence, or in other words, that there are multiple types of intelligences.
The gym where I train and workout, the Dubuque Martial Arts Group, is a place where I know who I am. It is a place I can go to escape my problems for a while and release some stress. It's not the actual physical building, but rather the events that have occurred there over the years. It's where I have formed some of my closest friendships. It is the place I have invested years of hard work for many of my accomplishments. To some it may seem odd that a place associated with sweat, blood and physical pain mean so much to someone. However, in my eyes it's almost like a second home.
While it is very difficult to define intelligence in itself, I believe in the theory of multiple intelligences. This is the idea that intelligence has different modalities, rather than a general understanding that someone is either intelligent, or that they are not. Interpersonal intelligence is the most important modality in my view. This can be roughly defined as having the ability to interact well with others. A good example of someone with high interpersonal skills was Martin Luther King. He was a clever man, however, it was not his IQ score that made him such a popular figure with the public, but his ability to read people, how they felt, and what their intentions
Gender is defined as the scopes of genetic, physical, mental and behaviour characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and feminity, meanwhile inequality is defined as in a situation where there is an unfair situation or treatment in which certain people have more privileges or better opportunities or chances than other people. Thus, from the definition stated gender inequality refers to unequal or unfair management, treatment, or perceptions of persons or individuals are based on their gender. In a parallel sense, gender inequality can be said as the world in which there was discrimination against anyone based on gender. In this introductory, the general understanding of gender inequalities will be discussed further into three significant factors that influence the allocation of housework between men and women. Household chores can be classified as cleaning, cooking and paying bills. Division of housework serves as an important element in the continuation of the function of a family and it requires contribution from both spouses (Tang, 2012). However, current society’s perception on housework is based on gender, so the three major factors that influence the division of household chores within the couples are education level, economic resources, and time availability (refer to Figure1 in Appendix 1).
Gender is defined as the scopes of genetic, physical, mental and behaviour characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and feminity, meanwhile inequality is defined as in a situation where there is an unfair situation or treatment in which certain people have more privileges or better opportunities or chances than other people. Thus, from the definition stated gender inequality refers to unequal or unfair management, treatment, or perceptions of persons or individuals are based on their gender. In a parallel sense, gender inequality can be said as the world in which there was discrimination against anyone based on gender. In this introductory, the general understanding of gender inequalities will be discussed further into three significant factors that influence the allocation of housework between men and women. Household chores can be classified as cleaning, cooking and paying bills. Division of housework serves as an important element in the continuation of the function of a family and it requires contribution from both spouses (Tang, 2012). However, current society’s perception on housework is based on gender, so the three major factors that influence the division of household chores within the couples are education level, economic resources, and time availability (refer to Figure1 in Appendix 1).