The discussion we had in class about the desparity in fan attendance for mens sports vs. womans sports interested me. As a class, it seemed that we came to the conclusion that men's sports is more interesting to watch because they are more "athletic" and play the sport at a higher level than the woman. I wondered if this was actually the case or if no matter how well the woman's teams play, the men's team will have a higher fan base. I think that the reason people support men's teams over woman's teams is because not only until a few hundred years ago have woman played professional sports. People have been watching men play sports for much longer than watching a woman play. I think this tradition is what people are grown up doing and continue to do as they get older. For me, I have grown up watching the men's Northwestern basketball team. I have been to many of their games yet I have never seen a woman's game. I think that because for generations people have been watching men play sports, that this has continued on into modern day.
I concur that tradition may be one reason. I also think that women's bodies simply don't meet the standards that men's do when you consider what is needed to succeed at modern sports. Mr Bolos brought up the idea that maybe sports have been constructed to support men, and I guess I agree. he argued that if sports were more delicate and graceful, we would laugh at men trying them. That may be true, but we already have a multitude of competitions based on grace and they are called pageants.
ReplyDelete