Abstract
The society expects males and females to adopt, believe in, and fulfill specific gender roles and stereotypes that have been established. Generally, males are expected to be strong, independent, and athletic, whereas females are expected to be quiet, obedient, attractive and nurturers. Society demands compliance to the enforced gender order. When these gender norms are violated, it is common for labels to be given, questions to be asked, and people to be ridiculed. Over the past few centuries, gender roles of men and women have started to change greatly in our society, and especially in the world of sports. Also, female athletes are beginning to establish themselves in the sports world. With the change in gender roles in our society, many female athletes have started to view themselves in a different manner. Even though women athletes have become more prominent in society, many wonder how these women feel about the evolution of gender roles, and how they have affected the perceptions of women athletes. In recent years, there has been a significant shift from advocating for ‘gender equity in sport’ towards using ‘sport for gender equity and personal development’. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n7p25
Highlights
The culture of sport is a key terrain for studying and understanding gender
Sport provides a unique way of understanding the ways in which society constructs the social bodies of men and women who participate in sport and how we assign masculinity and femininity to those bodies (Hardin and Whiteside, 2009).Sports as a male dominated system, which constantly reconstructs hegemonic masculinity through symbolic presentation, has been the focus of gender research since approximately 1980 (Evert, and Cynthia, 2007)
With the evolution of gender roles in our society, we have started to see women participate in certain sports such as soccer, hockey, athletics, boxing etc; that were at one time only associated with one gender
Summary
The culture of sport is a key terrain for studying and understanding gender. Sport provides a unique way of understanding the ways in which society constructs the social bodies of men and women who participate in sport and how we assign masculinity and femininity to those bodies (Hardin and Whiteside, 2009).Sports as a male dominated system, which constantly reconstructs hegemonic masculinity through symbolic presentation, has been the focus of gender research since approximately 1980 (Evert, and Cynthia, 2007). Throughout the past 100 years, gender roles of men and women have started to change greatly in our society, and especially in the world of sports (Eitzen, 2010). The evolution of gender roles in our society has shown a significant change in how women are represented in sports. With the evolution of gender roles in our society, we have started to see women participate in certain sports such as soccer, hockey, athletics, boxing etc; that were at one time only associated with one gender. Women’s sports look to become even more prominent in our society, based on how gender roles are considerably changing in sports, but in other areas of our culture (Eitzen, 2010; Sancar and Sever, 2009; Saavedra 2010). In this paper, the following subheadings will be presented and discussed in relation to gender and sports: defining concepts, traditional female stereotypes, female athletics stereotypes: historical progress, gender roles in women sports and the roles of sports in addressing gender issues
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