Sports play a key role in the preservation of society. Although sports have brought people together through competition and celebration, it has also brought up many controversies as well. Inequality between men and women is evident throughout various aspects of sport, whether it is physical, financial or social forms of physical activity. Looking at this inequality also plays a role on the ability to excel through sport for females and males. In today’s society, girls fail to grow in athletics due to genetic limitations of the female body, salary controversies, and stereotypes about female athletes.
As much as people would like to believe that males and females are equal, there are significant mechanical and genetic differences in both sexes. …show more content…
Society has a lot of control over what sports girls are ‘allowed’ to play, based on how that sport supports the female athlete stereotype. Girls tend to participate less in contact sports such as football or hockey, and more in sports that make the player seem more graceful such as figure skating or gymnastics (Kauer, 2006). These stereotypes restrict girl from testing the waters and playing sports that they may enjoy, and they might never know their true potential in that sport. Furthermore, this stereotype not only applies to contact sports but to extreme sports as well. These sports don’t allow women to show the feminine attributes that society assumes women should have. Society also forces women to have a certain body type in order to look attractive. Being overly muscular is less attractive in societies’ eyes for women, more so than it is for a man (Kauer, 2006) . These views that society has on how a woman should look, leads to a lot of athletes having eating disorders to maintain or achieve that image. Studies showed that female collegiate athletes were generally unaffected when weighed with other team mates but, the frequency of their self-weighing had a relationship to females having eating disorders or irregular attitudes to eating (Carrigan, Petrie & Anderson, 2000). Societies standards of an ideal woman, take a toll on female athlete’s’ mental strength. The idea of maintaining a feminine image is a large hindrance to the success a woman may have in the world of
As much as people would like to believe that males and females are equal, there are significant mechanical and genetic differences in both sexes. …show more content…
Society has a lot of control over what sports girls are ‘allowed’ to play, based on how that sport supports the female athlete stereotype. Girls tend to participate less in contact sports such as football or hockey, and more in sports that make the player seem more graceful such as figure skating or gymnastics (Kauer, 2006). These stereotypes restrict girl from testing the waters and playing sports that they may enjoy, and they might never know their true potential in that sport. Furthermore, this stereotype not only applies to contact sports but to extreme sports as well. These sports don’t allow women to show the feminine attributes that society assumes women should have. Society also forces women to have a certain body type in order to look attractive. Being overly muscular is less attractive in societies’ eyes for women, more so than it is for a man (Kauer, 2006) . These views that society has on how a woman should look, leads to a lot of athletes having eating disorders to maintain or achieve that image. Studies showed that female collegiate athletes were generally unaffected when weighed with other team mates but, the frequency of their self-weighing had a relationship to females having eating disorders or irregular attitudes to eating (Carrigan, Petrie & Anderson, 2000). Societies standards of an ideal woman, take a toll on female athlete’s’ mental strength. The idea of maintaining a feminine image is a large hindrance to the success a woman may have in the world of