http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZAehXzjG0w
This YouTube video captures the events of a women’s ice hockey game in which two distinct fights break out in its duration. The girls begin checking and punching each other and throwing each other to the floor. The referees try to interfere and break the girls apart but there are too many girls and fights going on to stop them all. The goalie on one of the teams even steps aside to watch the fight and then jumps in and gangs up on a member of the other team to help her teammate out. This video clip is evidence that violence is not only a factor associated with men’s athletics. Women too can get heated up and aggressive over a sports game. The belief that women’s participation in sports can only produce positive effects therefore cannot be one hundred percent true. This clip is only one of many that demonstrate aggression and violence in female athletics. Hockey is a sport especially known for heavy contact with players of the opposite team, primarily in men’s games, where fights typically break out and are encouraged by the fan base. Males particularly act upon this in order to prove their masculinity and their opposition towards acting as “sissies” when coming into contact with each other, as Messner would suggest. Female hockey players may too feel the need to play down the role of “sissy “moves by becoming aggressive and violent with each other while participating in the game. It is important to think about the connection between violence and sports for both genders because violence is not only associated with males sports; it is also a feature seen in women’s games. Though there may be roughhousing and fighting involved in some sports games, I believe violence is not always encouraged. I would ultimately state that the positive aspects of youth sports do outweigh the negative because being involved in sports is a great way for children to meet and interact with people their age as well as elders, like coaches and staff, and it can act as an outlet for emotions and built up tension that children might have. Though these feelings may sometimes come out aggressively, they do not always have to be hostile and violent.
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I agree with Amanda that positive aspects of sports outweigh the negative. Surely, there is violence involved in men's or women's sports although they differ from one another. For example, men's violence is often seen as normal behavior because of the notion that men must be masculine, strong, and aggressive. However, when women get involved in violence like men, people are often surprised for it because of the stereotype that women are much weaker than men. In lecture, Messner has introduced some positive effects on girls when they become involved in sports, such as a rise in confidence and self-assurance. I do agree that sports have positive effects such as these on girls, but I do not agree that it only has positive effects but they are definitely more significant than the negative ones.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amanda in her belief that women's participations in sports is not always a positive thing because the culture of some sports actually promotes violence. Since a sport like hockey is notoriously known as a violent sport that breeds fights, the impact cannot be considered as completely positive. I also think it's important to note that violence occurs in both boy's and girl's sports, but is something that is expected more from boys than girls. However, I also think that it's possible that girl's participation in sports encourages violence to prove that they are not "sissies," as Amanda pointed out. I agree with both Amanda and Yuri that the positive effects of sports outweigh the negative aspets. Although the culture of many sports deal with violence, I believe that youth sports actually tries to downplay the use of violence by promoting good sportsmanship.
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