Women's Sports, heavily stereotyped.
How are women stereotyped in sports?
All the way from pewee leagues to professional sports women are stereotyped by society. These stereotypes occur in many different ways, across a wide variety of sports. Between being valued on physical appearance of the body, and less on performance, gender stereotypes clearly exist in sports. Anyone could spend days searching and not find half of the stereotypes attached to women's sports. These many stereotypes are likely due to the traditional gender norms of our society. The most apparent stereotypes are present in Football, Volleyball, Track and Softball. Though many more sports have stereotypes attached, these seem to be the most common place to find stereotypes.
Football
One of the more obvious stereotypes is found in football, cheerleading. Though it may seem harmless to many of us who have been brought up around these traditional gender norms, it puts women on the sidelines. The very essence of cheerleading is to cheer for the football team and look physically appealing to the fans. This continues the traditional norm of women being valued on their appearance not their abilities whereas it is vice versa for men. As an example, in football players are judged upon their performance and many fans would agree that better performance makes the player more valuable to the team. On the other hand, in cheerleading the basis of value is mostly physical looks and appearance such as makeup and skimpy uniforms. Another example of stereotypes in football is the lingerie football league itself. This league is simply based on gender stereotypes! The women dress up in lingerie, have minimal pads and play football. Fans do watch the different teams play, however its pretty safe to say that it is more about watching women run around in lingerie, than the actual game. In another example from a article by Katie Thomas, flag football is growing for women, but the gender stereotypes of women being more delicate and a need to make their sport easier than men's football still exits. The field in flag football for women is 80 yards instead of the usual 110 yards. Also it is flag football with no tackling which assumes that women are too delicate to participate in tackle football. This clearly shows the type of stereotypes and the value we are placing on women in sports. But football isn't the only culprit.
Volleyball
Another common sport filled with stereotypes of women in sports is volleyball, particularly beach volleyball. Indoor volleyball usually involves very short shorts worn by the players, and beach volleyball is typically a bikini swimsuit. Again, this shows how women are valued and judged in sports, more on appearance than ability. Many may rebuttal that Bikini's for beach volleyball are simply because of the beach setting, however even in the Olympics, Bikini's are worn for competition. The use of bikini's tends to focus the attention of fans more on the physical bodies of the players than the actual game-play.
Track
Yet Another sport in which women's uniforms are more revealing is track. Compared to men's uniforms, women are given shorter shorts and sometimes more revealing tops. Although the tightness cannot be taken into consideration due to the nature of the sport, making the uniforms more revealing surely does. Again, the emphasis seems to be placed upon appearance and body, not necessarily as much on performance as men. The picture above with a female track runner was one of the first images to pop up on a search. The fact that it was that high in the search shows people more focusing on the delicacy of females, and not so much the actual performance of the woman. In addition, women need lower qualifying times and are expected to do less in track, just as many women's sports in comparison with Men's.
Softball
The very word softball is already indicative of a gender stereotype. Baseball is sometimes called hardball, and the fact that women's sport is known as softball is a gender stereotype in itself, assuming that women must play sports at a softer level than men. Again, women are expected to do less in this sport as well and that plays a big role on the way the game is played in comparison to baseball. For instance, in softball it is normal to see an underhanded pitch, whereas it is unheard of in baseball where all the pitches are overhanded. The very equipment used in the two games is also enforcing that women are less skilled in sports. The size of a baseball in comparison to a softball is much smaller, making it more difficult to hit than a softball. This assumes that women need an easier ball to hit than men implying that they can not perform at a higher level in comparison with men. Softball has also been a sport with lots gender stereotypical jokes attached to it. Many males especially will claim that softball is for lezbians, and the high number of lezbian leagues of softball may not be helping to stop this stereotype. Clearly softball contains much in the way of gender stereotypes and inequality.
Football
One of the more obvious stereotypes is found in football, cheerleading. Though it may seem harmless to many of us who have been brought up around these traditional gender norms, it puts women on the sidelines. The very essence of cheerleading is to cheer for the football team and look physically appealing to the fans. This continues the traditional norm of women being valued on their appearance not their abilities whereas it is vice versa for men. As an example, in football players are judged upon their performance and many fans would agree that better performance makes the player more valuable to the team. On the other hand, in cheerleading the basis of value is mostly physical looks and appearance such as makeup and skimpy uniforms. Another example of stereotypes in football is the lingerie football league itself. This league is simply based on gender stereotypes! The women dress up in lingerie, have minimal pads and play football. Fans do watch the different teams play, however its pretty safe to say that it is more about watching women run around in lingerie, than the actual game. In another example from a article by Katie Thomas, flag football is growing for women, but the gender stereotypes of women being more delicate and a need to make their sport easier than men's football still exits. The field in flag football for women is 80 yards instead of the usual 110 yards. Also it is flag football with no tackling which assumes that women are too delicate to participate in tackle football. This clearly shows the type of stereotypes and the value we are placing on women in sports. But football isn't the only culprit.
Volleyball
Another common sport filled with stereotypes of women in sports is volleyball, particularly beach volleyball. Indoor volleyball usually involves very short shorts worn by the players, and beach volleyball is typically a bikini swimsuit. Again, this shows how women are valued and judged in sports, more on appearance than ability. Many may rebuttal that Bikini's for beach volleyball are simply because of the beach setting, however even in the Olympics, Bikini's are worn for competition. The use of bikini's tends to focus the attention of fans more on the physical bodies of the players than the actual game-play.
Track
Yet Another sport in which women's uniforms are more revealing is track. Compared to men's uniforms, women are given shorter shorts and sometimes more revealing tops. Although the tightness cannot be taken into consideration due to the nature of the sport, making the uniforms more revealing surely does. Again, the emphasis seems to be placed upon appearance and body, not necessarily as much on performance as men. The picture above with a female track runner was one of the first images to pop up on a search. The fact that it was that high in the search shows people more focusing on the delicacy of females, and not so much the actual performance of the woman. In addition, women need lower qualifying times and are expected to do less in track, just as many women's sports in comparison with Men's.
Softball
The very word softball is already indicative of a gender stereotype. Baseball is sometimes called hardball, and the fact that women's sport is known as softball is a gender stereotype in itself, assuming that women must play sports at a softer level than men. Again, women are expected to do less in this sport as well and that plays a big role on the way the game is played in comparison to baseball. For instance, in softball it is normal to see an underhanded pitch, whereas it is unheard of in baseball where all the pitches are overhanded. The very equipment used in the two games is also enforcing that women are less skilled in sports. The size of a baseball in comparison to a softball is much smaller, making it more difficult to hit than a softball. This assumes that women need an easier ball to hit than men implying that they can not perform at a higher level in comparison with men. Softball has also been a sport with lots gender stereotypical jokes attached to it. Many males especially will claim that softball is for lezbians, and the high number of lezbian leagues of softball may not be helping to stop this stereotype. Clearly softball contains much in the way of gender stereotypes and inequality.