From: benjamin@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Benjamin Renaud)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: American athletics
Date: 23 Dec 1992 19:52:16 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1gssp2INN35b@agate.berkeley.edu> mvwjf@mvgpf.att.com (William J Fallon) writes:
]Well that's a subject for debate. I'd bet that if you did a study of success-
]ful athletes, male and female, that you'd find that the characteristics
]they had most in common are ones like drive, dedication, mental toughness,
]goal-orientation, etc. I think it's an important point whether you're talking
]about sports or business or academics, etc. Most of the reading I've done about
]women's sports, much of which is extensible to other areas of life seems
]to indicate that attitudes of both women themselves and society as a whole think
]it's unfeminine for a woman to possess the mental qualities that are actually
]most important to succeed in many areas of endeavor. 

Let me disagree with this. Many new female athlete, most visibly in
tennis (such as Capriati, that german player, can't remember her name,
etc...) are very very clearly extremely well endowed with the above
mentionned qualities (toughness competition endurance and such) and
are still considered very feminine (just listen to the comments of the
guys who cover these games.)

Someone made a point earlier which i thought made very much sense. Let
me elaborate on it: at games with mass audiences, men perform better
than women (basketball, tennis, baseball, volleyball, boxing and of
course football, but let's put football aside for now). Let's first
consider why they're extremely popular sports. Some would suggest that
they put the emphasis on typically male abilities thereby making them
popular.

For any other sport than boxing, I don't think that's the answer.
Indeed, team sports are mostly the sports watched by the masses,
because they allow both for large audiences, and team identification.
Cross country skiing, long distance swimming or other sports where
women perform on an equal level with men are by and large not
telegenic: they don't make a good show. Boxing and tennis are also
easy to watch, short and people can relate to them relatively easily.

]when they are young to push themselves, to go out and compete, to excell, etc.
]However if you're a girl it's not quite seen as "ladylike" to push yourself,
]to try to win, etc. Even women who have succeeded in sports (that's where I
]do most of my reading) report that fathers, friends, lovers, etc. while
]being generally supportive still express doubts when they see women putting
]lots of time and effort into endeavors and postpone marriage, families, etc.

I have never, ever heard such things. Most often, the fathers of young
female athletes are their coach and mentor and are extremely
supportive and proud.

]These attitudes transfer to the women themselves who develop secret doubts
]about whether they really ARE unfeminine, "different", worry about not
]pleasing those important to them, etc. And all this applies not just to
]women who want to run marathons but women who want to break sales quotas
]or become partners in law firms or earn advanced degrees. It's ATTITUDES
]that cause the problem. Women are told not only that they can't but also
]that they shouldn't.

There is some truth to that although i think that by and large today,
these attitudes are gone, especially in the younger segments of the
population. With time, it will spread to everyone. Role models such as
Capriati and other young female athletes (look at the US winter
olympics team) and also in other areas (professional and such) are now
increasingly available. I think things are on the right track. Anyone
has any idea why there aren't any female football teams? (i am a
foreigner as you probably already guessed....) (this is a serious
question.)

Benjamin



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