Gender Equality In Sports

Sport is something that plays a very important role in the lives of many people. This certainly holds true in my life. From a very young age, I was involved in some form of athletics. I was never the best, I was not ever the worst, but I always continued to play because I enjoyed it so much. I have played almost every sport available to children who grow up in Louisiana. I have played football, baseball, basketball, golf, ice hockey, soccer, and tennis. Each sport was played for a different length time, and they each gave a new and different experience.

Throughout my life, I was involved in organized sports for as long as I could remember, up until my junior year of high school. My sport history begins with my involvement in tee ball, basketball,

Many efforts are being made to bring sports to all people no matter their circumstances. Gender equality in sports is something that has been a focus since the inception of Title IX. Although the goal of Title IX was to provide equal opportunities for women to participate in sports, that desired equality has not been reached. Racial equality is also the focus of the athletic governing bodies in the United States. All professional sports leagues in the U.S. will at some point in their season launch a promotional event to speak out and stop racism in their sport and in general. One final issue facing sports is providing an equal opportunity to all children to play whatever sport they desire regardless of their family’s income. The privatization of youth sports has made it very difficult for children of lower income families to play sports because they must now pay to be a part of a club or league in addition to the already high and continually rising prices of athletic equipment. As a child, I do not think that I understood things such as race and social class to the extent that I do now. I grew up playing sports with children of different race and social status, but that was never something that I paid attention to because in my eyes, we were all there for the same reason which was to have fun and enjoy whatever sport we were playing. Despite the differences and similarities between

They observe things such as race, gender, social class, politics, business, and so forth to determine how they effect sports and those involved in them. Mainstream media covers sports now more than before and often the members of the media focus on the many social issues that are present in collegiate and professional sports. When I hear some of the things that are talked about, I begin to wonder what causes the problems and at what age the start. Mike Messner is a very well known and respected sociologist at the University of Southern California. In his book, Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports, Messner wrote about a personal encounter at the opening ceremonies for his child’s soccer team. Messner described an encounter between the boys on his son’s team and the girls of another team in which the boys began to show opposition to the “Barbie Girls” team name. Messner wrote about how the individual boys did not at first seem to pay any attention to what the girls were doing, but when the boys noticed that other members of their team did not approve, that is when the trouble began because each individual member of the team did not want to be seen as different from the other (Messner, 2017). I can relate to this experience in my own life. People will choose to play sports for a variety of reasons. The only reason that I have ever had to start a sport was because I thought I would