Gender Of Sports Media example essay topic

Women and men are nestled into predetermined cultural molds when it comes to gender in American society. Women play the roles of mothers, housekeepers, and servants to their husbands and children, and men act as providers, protectors, and heads of the household. These gender roles stem from the many culture myths that exist pertaining to America, including those of the model family, education, liberty, and of gender. The majority of these myths are misconceptions, but linger because we, as Americans, do not analyze or question them.

The misconception of gender suggests that biological truths no longer dictate our gender roles as men and women; they derive from cultural myths. We, as a nation, need to do severe critical thinking about this delusion of gender, how has limited us in the home, media, and education, how it currently limits us, and what the results of the current and future changes in gender roles will be. Throughout history, the roles of men and women in the home suggested that the husband would provide for his family, usually in a professional field, and be the head of his household, while he submissive wife remained at home. This wife's only jobs included childcare, housekeeping, and placing dinner on the table in front of her family. The roles women and men played in earlier generations exemplify the way society limited men and women by placing them into gender specific molds; biology has never claimed that men were the sole survivors of American families, and that women were the only ones capable of making a pot roast. This depiction of the typical family has evolved.

For example, in her observation of American families, author Judy Root Aul ette noted that more families practice Egalitarian ideologies and are in favor of gender equality. "Women are more likely to participate in the workforce, while men are more likely to share in housework and childcare (a pa... )". Today's American families have broken the Ward and June Cleaver mold, and continue to become stronger and more sufficient.

Single parent families currently become increasingly popular in America, with single men and women taking on the roles of both mother and father. This bend in the gender rules would have, previously, been unheard of, but in the evolution of gender in the family, it's now socially acceptable, and very common. What is even more common is the change in gender in primetime television, and film. In earlier decades, shows featuring couples such as Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, Mike and Carol Brady, and Samantha and Darrin Stephens predominantly held primetime slots on television. The uprising of gay and lesbian entertainment in shows such as "Will & Grace", Showtime series "Queer As Folk" and "The L Word", has overthrown the former cookie cutter husband and wife TV series. Gay and lesbian affairs in the media emerged quickly after the coming out of Ellen Degeneres in her hit sitcom, "Ellen".

The comedian now has her own daytime talk show, achieving mainstream popularity for obvious reasons: she's funny, down-to-earth, and openly gay. In earlier decades homosexuality was previously limited to a closet of taboos, where no one knew about it, and no one admitted to it. Primetime programming would never house a show in which gay men and lesbian women openly discussed their sex lives and sexual preferences, nor a show that based its entire plot line on gay and lesbian couples. On the same cable networks that act as the home for gay and lesbian television series, America finds its new woman for the new millennium: she's smart, independent, gainfully employed, sexually confident, and, usually, she's single. Television finally has room for a woman to fly on her own, without her minivan, Cub Scout den-mother meetings, or workaholic husband to feed and clean up after. The prime example for TV's new "wonder woman", is found in the four women of HBO's Emmy Award winning series, "Sex & The City".

These characters are successful, single Manhattan women who never hesitate to be outspoken, particularly about their sexual endeavors, opinionated, and possess no apprehension about living the single life. Some may call them promiscuous due to their numerous conquests, some of them one-night-stands and relationships with married men, which was completely unheard of in television of earlier years. These women are high paid, successful, fashionable women who have broken through the cultural myth of gender into a class of their own without an apron or husband to protect them. However, in sports media women have yet to catch up. Sociologist Michael A. Messner, after researching through over 23 hours of sports media, identifies a set of recurring themes of masculinity in sports media, which he calls "the televised sports manhood formula". In his formula, Messner asserts that men dominate televised sports media and the commercials that surround it, and that women either play the role of "castrating. .. to be avoided" or "sexy props or prizes for men's successful sports performances or consumptions choices".

(Messner, M.A. (2002) Center of Attention: The Gender of Sports Media). In televised sports, the male athletes and commentators are shown for over 99% of the event, and female athletes and sportscasters are lucky to receive 15 seconds of camera time, and even luckier to be aired in the broadcast. Was this biology's decision, or society's? Is it encoded in a woman's DNA to be a prize or a stifling nag or a mere cheerleader, or is it written in the rules of culture? It appears as though women also limit themselves in adversarial argument and education, by reverting to submissiveness in the presence of men. Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, observes a recent dilemma "that girls often receive less attention and speak up less in class".

(Tannen, D. (1999) The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue, from The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words) Tannen claims that while males in the classroom openly criticize, question, and argue, females offer "a nice, little supportive question" and "don't dare to challenge or refute" an author or instructor. These observations imply that women either lack intelligence or lack the nerve to display intelligence in class, and are highly debatable. As a college student, I am able to affirm that women are just as argumentative and willing to speak in the classroom environment as men, if not more. In my Oral Communication class, females outnumber males, twenty-one to seven, and I am only able to remember hearing three of those seven males speak during class discussions and debates. Over the last 50 years, the roles of gender in American society continue to evolve from old-fashioned husbands and wives to strong independent women, househusbands, and even single parent or same-sex parented families. The way we see men and women on the big and small screens grows from Mike and Carol Brady, to Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor, from Lucy and Ethel cleaning house and gossiping about their husbands, to Samantha and Carrie living as successful professional women in The Big Apple, and having open sexual encounters with other people's husbands.

While some limits still exist within these changes, such as the lack of females in mainstream sports media, and the implied shortage of verbally assertive women in the classroom, the evolution of gender imposes a major impact on this generation and generations to come, by changing the way we behave at home, in social activities, school, and the way we see ourselves in the media. It is no longer a social taboo for a woman to express her views about politics, sex, and religion; the three topics a woman was never supposed to discuss in previous decades. A woman in the office no longer takes messages, makes coffee, and runs off copies for her male boss; she represents top clients, holds important business meetings, and flies across the country for professional conferences. A man no longer spends 85% of his time working to support a housewife and kids; he can stay at home, and run errands and raise children and not risk being put to social shame. Couples on TV sleep in the same bed rather than separate twin beds, with or without wedding bands, and not necessarily man and woman. American society needs to break from the mold of the myth of gender, which suggests that society and culture dictate our roles as men and women, as can only restrict us into unnecessary conformity.

The opinion of society should no longer decide who we are, what we do, and what we " re capable of doing. We, as Americans, need to deeply analyze and question this fallacy of gender and the way it restricts us at home, in the media, and in the classroom. If we continue to follow the invisible guidelines of in invisible rule book, we " re destined to hurt ourselves and our future generations by remaining nestled into our cultural cocoons and never shedding them.