Pursuing my degree in Sociology has made me much more about the social world around me. It also allows me to reflect on the social world that I was in while growing up. This weeks reading was about gender representation and identification. One point that the article made was that throughout society and in sports especially there is a certain division of labor between the sexes. The author of article Michael Messner followed around a group of preschool soccer players, one boys teams and one girls team. He took note of the entire team, managers, family members and their roles, attitudes, ad behavior throughout the kids first games. He identified that the majority of the head coach positions were held by men while the majority of the team manager positions were held by women. Women are so common in this role that women team mangers are often called the “team mom”. This division of labor is something that promotes the stereotype and gender stigmas that are so common in our society.
The promotion of certain gender stigmas is a common pattern that can be identified in our society. Even in a very open minded and progressive world there are still certain jobs that are held only for men and certain jobs for women. One place where this division is very apparent is in professional sports. There is a lot of stigma between the players but the gender division can be clearly seen from the coaches and mangers of the team. The majority of the time the head coach position is held by male coaches.There are a few head coaches that are women but not very many when compared to all the men. It can be harder for women head coaches who identify as a member of the LGBTQ community. There are lots go stigmas centered around lesbian coaches being predatory to their team and sexually assaulting them. This happens with both men and women female coaches but is seen as more of a crime when perpetrated by a lesbian woman. These stigmas follow around any LGBTQ woman trying to gain entry into this profession. There is always this idea and delusion that members of the LGBTQ cannot control their urges and are sexual predators. That is simply not the case and needs to seriously evaluated. Professional sports players, universities, and organizations loose out on great coaches simply because they identify as LGBTQ.
I like how you addressed the women's roles as team Moms where as men are viewed as coaches. I mostly focused in the dynamics of gender being perpetuated among youth within the soccer league itself. Going further to look at how gender in addition to identifying on the LGBT spectrum is even more of a challenge was good way to not only look at surface level gender as sex, but how LGBT doesn't play into typical gender binary is a really good take.
ReplyDeleteI like how you began the article by associating the issue that you were speaking of to your own person experience, and how pursuing your degree has made you more aware of the social world around you. Gender stigmas within professions is a huge issue as you said in sports professions, as well as others, but your inclusion of the LGBTQ community is crucial. As a consumer of media, I can say that the issue of LGBTQ stigmas in the conversation of gender within professions is often, if not always overlooked. I think your views of this issue are an excellent way of starting the conversation of all gender inequalities within the profession of sports.
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