Women in sports

Jonathan
WGSS 370
MW 3:30-4:45
Female Athletics In ancient times women were not very involved in sports. For example during the ancient Olympics women were not allowed into the arenas, even as spectators. During the early era of the modern Olympics women were only permitted to stand by as men expanded their skills as athletes. As time progressed women’s involvement in professional and collegiate athletics grew, yet men and women still have a great deal of distance between their perspective athletic identities. In this paper I’m going to demonstrate that the intersection of racial disparity, social barriers, media stereotyping, and insufficient funding are all contributing factors to the lack of involvement and development of female athletics.
In my methodology my primary research involved interviews of twenty students in the campus recreation center. Ten men and ten women responded to questions regarding the social make up, racial backgrounds, media involvement, and the allocation of funds into female professional and collegiate level athletics. My secondary research involved scholarly articles and data from media websites. My secondary research will be used to support the ideas represented in my primary research Racial disparity plays a large roll in the involvement and development of female athletics. The construction of female athletics as a whole is greatly dependent on the participation of every race in athletics at the recreational and professional level. My primary research revealed in the interviews that the majority of students feel female athletes at the professional level are mostly Caucasian. Five out of ten men felt that female athletes were mostly Caucasian, and the other five out of ten men felt that females were mostly African American. Four out of ten women felt that female athletes were mostly Caucasian, three out of ten women felt that female athletes were mostly African American, one woman felt that female athletes were mostly Asian and two women felt that female athletes were mostly other. This supports the idea that the there is a racial disparity amongst women in sports. This disparity can hinder the development of the female athlete because of the instrumental value that a professional role model plays on the involvement of children in athletics. It is simple, when a young woman or young girl views a racially similar woman at the professional level the young woman or girl is able to relate herself to the sport.