Women's Week Presentation

Women's Sports

 
Assignment/Activity Title— Women's Sports

Year— Junior

Skill— Media, Research

Portfolio Category— Social Awareness  

          Women's week was a class-driven examination of modern gender relations, with a focus on the feminist movement. Among ourselves, we divided up research and presentations by specific topic, and created a schedule to follow (although that ultimately got thrown off by AP testing). A couple classmates even brought in a speaker to talk about the feminist movement and women's advocacy with us. Over the course of the roughly two and a half week unit, we held our own debates, presentations, and discussions. The final step of the project was to create a list of seven 'principles to live by,' or seven rules regarding feminism that the entire class would have to agree upon.

            I was assigned two separate presentations. The first involved gender roles, where I would read a list of micro-aggressions and sexist behavior and then be on the lookout for it myself (reporting my findings at the end of the class). While I completely understand the intent of this assignment – and I do think it worked, to an extent – I found that it had one serious issue: Everything is conditional. For instance, the list described "calling a woman talkative even when it's been scientifically proven that men talk more." Although I understand how that can be a micro-aggression, it's highly situational. If a woman or girl is talking a lot, should I have to restrain myself from calling them talkative because they might take offense? A lot of the items on this list were a good example of how feminism and women's advocacy can be exploited in ways that shouldn't mesh with the rest of the movement. Other items on the list that shouldn't have been there include "anything attributed to a woman's period or PMS" and "count the women who speak in class vs. the men." One thing that did strike me while doing the gender log, however, was the amount vernacular that is constantly used without thinking (and debases women). Some of our favorite insults today – "p***y," "b***h," "s**t" – are terms that have inherent female implications. This kind of language consistently promotes the culture that objectifies and degrades women on a daily basis. It is ironic, though, that when I heard a man using one of these terms during this project my first thought was "oh, what a d**k."

            The other subject I was assigned too was women's sports in relation to men's. Now, there are a couple main arguments people like to use when discussing why women's sports aren't as widely watched as men's. The first is that the media coverage of women's sports is much less than that of men's – which it is – and the second is that women's sports are enormously underfunded – which they are. However, I don't think either of these really addresses the root cause of this athletic inequality. Why don't women's sports get as much coverage? Why don't they get as much funding? What I discovered, based off my own personal experience, is that they're just not as entertaining to watch. Which prompted me to look deeper into biological differences between male and female athletes, and how those differences might affect athletic performance. What I found was essentially that the male body is more powerful and has greater stamina. The female body has greater flexibility and a lower center of balance. These natural differences between male and female physiology gives each gender advantages in certain sports. My most interesting finding, however, was the injury rates for high school athletes. Female athletes are almost 40 percent more likely to tear their ACL than male athletes, and more likely to just generally injure themselves as well. While some of this can be attributed to a lighter bone density and less muscle buildup, the driving cause of this increased female injury rate is the type of training they undergo. Most high school coaches and trainers treat female athletes the same way they treat male athletes – that is, they have this ingrained notion of gender equality. Although absolute equality is necessary in some areas of life, athletics is not one of them. The overarching decision to put female athletes through the same paces as male athletes leads to a higher injury rate because the female body cannot physically keep up with the male one. Increased stress on joints and tendons leads to injury when the body finally cannot keep pace. So how can we prevent this? It's easy. Get rid of this notion that women and men need to be completely level in all areas of life. In this case, a 'separate but equal' policy can ensure safety.

            The rest of the class focused on their own, separate topics. One of the most interesting presentations I saw was the one on women in the military, primarily because it was similar to my own topic. Donald and Caitlin took relatively the same stance I did, using physiological differences to argue that women should not have entry-test requirements lowered (Donald even went so far as to say they shouldn't be allowed in the infantry). The reasoning here was similar to the reasoning for my women's sports presentation, but with an added element – safety. The reason our military is so good is because of the standards it holds itself to. If we lower those standards for 'gender equality,' we are also lowering the standards and therefore power of our military as a side effect.

            The other presentation that piqued my interest was the debate on sex work. Going into the discussion, I had no real feelings or knowledge about the issue. Coming out, I'm leaning towards the pro-legalization side – although I'm not sure whether that's because of the content discussed or the skills of the debaters themselves. The anti-legalization side contradicted each other a lot, and seemed to almost always come back to using puritanical values to qualify sex (which I generally disagree with). The pro-legalization side seemed more reasonable, and had a more agreeable demeanor. Sam Bilsky especially seemed to really know what he was talking about, which made his argument even more persuading (which makes sense, since he's been researching this topic for years). This class presentation and discussion of sex work (prostitution and pornography specifically) was valuable because it helped me formulate opinions and gather information about a topic that I wasn't necessarily knowledgeable about before.

 

          Women's week was an important project in general because it allowed me to sharpen a variety of skills. First, I was forced to use my researching abilities in looking at physiological differences between genders. I needed statistics to back up my claims, or else I'd come across as a straight-up misogynist (which I might have anyway). That element of the project is clearly evident. Another aspect of the project forced me to use my critical reasoning abilities to come up with a solution to female athlete injury rates. By analyzing the date, I was able to come up with the outlines of a solution. This goes hand in hand with the communication aspect of the project, as I had to inform and convince the class that what I was saying was correct, and my solution was a viable one. The largest portion of this project, however – and the reason it's placed under social awareness – is because of how it forced us to examine the culture and society we live in. Women's advocacy is something everyone hears about; that everyone has come into contact with at some point in their lives. And yet so few of us ever actually get to have a discussion on it, to ask questions about it or to help define terms. This project allowed us to work through this vague term that is 'feminism' together, and through that process become aware of the advantages and disadvantages each gender has.