Until recently gender and sex have both been viewed in binary terms, and considered interchangeable. Now as more people are publicly identifying as trans, agender, or nonbinary, and different sexual orientations are coming to light, feminism and human rights have expanded these concepts in order to encompass people who are more marginalized than their cisgender and heterosexual counterparts. However, the idea of the gender binary is still strictly enforced through popular culture, and especially through sports, where women and men are completely divided. This has some practical grounding because of the physiological differences between the sexes, but the idea of “separate but equal” has not transferred to the public image and stereotypes women
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Women in sports have faced an uphill battle combatting these stereotypes because of the strict gender binary norms imposed on sports that inherently keep women inferior to men. As women began to impose on the historically men’s world of sports, their femininity immediately came into question, and their physical strength and power were deemed unattractive and wrong. In the public’s eye, women were not allowed to nor should be able to be as good as men at sports because the characteristics needed to succeed were powerful and therefore not suitable for the real woman. The athletic community was so skeptical of female athletes and their success that in the 1960s outrageous measures were taken to prove gender, such as sex testing. Organizations such as the International Association of …show more content…
This served to make women feel the need to have a man to support them or to do certain things for men. Susan Cahn writes, “in their [men] view, strenuous athletic pursuits endangered women and threatened the stability of society.” Sports are meant to and do empower women; upsetting the ingrained, sexist, and binary power dynamics where women serve and need men. The large controversy surrounding women’s participation in sports was due to a loss of heterosexual control over women. Many women were ridiculed for showing signs of strength, leading them to dress more typically feminine, advertise boyfriends, and adopt domestic hobbies. In addition, physical education curricula changed in order to teach women to exercise to lose weight and look attractive for men, rather than become athletic, and certain professional tournaments began to incorporate a beauty pageant aspect. Although not all women’s sports teams and activities were made for men, they eventually became more sexualized in order to make the participants more heterosexually
Women in sports have faced an uphill battle combatting these stereotypes because of the strict gender binary norms imposed on sports that inherently keep women inferior to men. As women began to impose on the historically men’s world of sports, their femininity immediately came into question, and their physical strength and power were deemed unattractive and wrong. In the public’s eye, women were not allowed to nor should be able to be as good as men at sports because the characteristics needed to succeed were powerful and therefore not suitable for the real woman. The athletic community was so skeptical of female athletes and their success that in the 1960s outrageous measures were taken to prove gender, such as sex testing. Organizations such as the International Association of …show more content…
This served to make women feel the need to have a man to support them or to do certain things for men. Susan Cahn writes, “in their [men] view, strenuous athletic pursuits endangered women and threatened the stability of society.” Sports are meant to and do empower women; upsetting the ingrained, sexist, and binary power dynamics where women serve and need men. The large controversy surrounding women’s participation in sports was due to a loss of heterosexual control over women. Many women were ridiculed for showing signs of strength, leading them to dress more typically feminine, advertise boyfriends, and adopt domestic hobbies. In addition, physical education curricula changed in order to teach women to exercise to lose weight and look attractive for men, rather than become athletic, and certain professional tournaments began to incorporate a beauty pageant aspect. Although not all women’s sports teams and activities were made for men, they eventually became more sexualized in order to make the participants more heterosexually