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Sports in Pop Culture

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Sports in Pop Culture
Abstract
Gender, race, and competitiveness in youth sports have been controversial beginning on the very first day of sports broadening its boundaries (Granderson, 2012). From Brent Barry to Kristy Yamaguchi to Tiger Woods, one of the youngest golf champions ever, sports has always been "one way.” Different people of different backgrounds, ethnic groups, and social classes, and ages have shown that he or she can do anything if they have the will to accomplish the task (Granderson, 2012). Tiger Woods won 71 PGA Tours, Kristy Yamaguchi excelled in figure skating and Brent Barry showed that White men can jump when he won the 1996 slam dunk contest. Race, gender, and youth have nothing to do with ability and skill in sports (Granderson, 2012).

Role of Sports in Popular Culture
Gender equality in sports is heavily influence by cultural and structural ideologies. In the past 40 years women are more accepted in the male-dominated world of sports. Although it is quite apparent that men are still very threatened by the thought of gender equality in sport, but in general as well. Restructuring ideologies on gender in culture and social habitat at a very young age is critical in the race to diminishing gender inequalities in sport.
According to Coakley, ideas and beliefs about gender are an essential part of the groundwork on which sports are organize, promoted, and, played. Sports are traditionally correlated with masculinity. Most often they are dominate, identified, and centered on the values and experiences of boys and young men. They urge he or she to take risks face one’s fears, and push normative limits (Coakley, 2009). Prior to the early 1970’s, most people did not question the way sports was organized around masculinity. Men who participated in these types of sports were said to be “unmanly” (Coakley, 2009).
Gender equality can be explained in cultural stereotypes. Because sport is so rooted in “a man’s” world, he or she can see how gender



References: Battista, (2012), National football league roundup, New York Times, Retrieved March 22, 2012, website: http://www. nytimes.com Coakley, J. (2009). Sports in Society, 10th ed. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Granderson, L. (2012). United States needs to broaden appeal of tennis. Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/story/_/id/7433472/to-compete-internationally-us-needs-broaden-appeal-tennis Messner, M., Hunt, D. and Dunbar, M., (1999), Boys to Men: Sport Media-Messages About Masculinity Retrieved on 03/19/12 from http://www.la84foundation.org/9arr/ResearchReports/boystomen.pdf. Petracca, M., & Sorapure, M. (2007), Common culture: Reading and writing about American popular culture chapter 6 (5th ed.) [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-Book], Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Retrieved from: The University of PHOENIX, SOC/105 website: https://portal.phoenix.edu/classroom/coursematerials/soc_105/20120229/ United Nationals, (2007), Women, gender equality, and sport. Women 2000 and beyond.

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