Gender, Sexuality and Sports

This week reading "Sexuality as a structural principle in sport participation: Negotiating sports spaces" Elling and Janssens stated important facts about the relations of gender, sexuality and sports. Most of the time, perception of homosexual/ bisexual men are less likely to participate masculine sports/ team sports like football and basketball while homosexual/bisexual women may tend to engage in masculine sports. However, according to a study in Netherlands, the findings challenged the perceptions above. According to the findings, non-heterosexual men are less likely to engage in team sports when comparing to heterosexual men and more likely to engage in profit organizations such as fitness centers. However, there is no significant difference when comparing non-heterosexual women and heterosexual women unlike what we formerly believe. Non-heterosexual men are more likely to join non-team sports or joining a gay/lesbian oriented club. This is motivated by an inclusive atmosphere and also prior membership of friends, expressing identity in the comfort zone. Some of the non-heterosexual respondents refused to join a LGBT sports club as they believe openly expressing identity could be a threat for them to be discriminated by other people. The study shows that even in an open society like the Netherlands, non-heterosexual men/women experience discrimination, threats and attacks from other people.

After the presentation this week, we have heated discussion about the male sports players and female sports players. One student mentioned most netball players need to have another job other than playing netball to support their living. Because you can earn enough money for playing netball professionally. The most controversial issue is professional female athletes are not treated as athletes but more often being sexualized. A good example is professional players in tennis. A list of attractive female players including Ana Ivanovic, Anna Kournikova, Maria Kirilenko and Maria Sharapova. People rarely mention their tennis skills or success career in sports, what people care the most is their beauty and attractive bodies. From the male magazine FHM, there is one article entitled the Top 10 Sexiest Tennis Players of All-Time. It shows a list of photos of those players shooting for Maxim or swimsuit. Also photos taken during their leisure time, such as going to beach with their bikinis or going to an event with a sexy ball gown. The conclusion is if female tennis player want to survive and make a living with tennis career, she has to be pretty and sexy instead of improving their performance in competition. That's the only way they can get sponsorship and make the same amount of money as male players. Simply key in "female tennis players" on YouTube, a list of video showing "The sexiest tennis player" "The hottest female players" Look at the video, they even rank each player with their sexy pictures.

Another interesting discussion is about the hooliganism in sports.
The movie green street hooligans is about Matt, an expelled Harvard undergrad moves to London and meet Pete. Soon after going to watch West Ham United v Birmingham, he is involved in a fight and finds out Pete is in leader of West Ham's hooligans. He started to get involved, from being afraid to starting to fight. He learns to stand by his friends no matter what the consequences. It is the moment of us vs them. Unfortunately, the content in the movie is based on true story. And I remember being warned by friends of going to a football match in London. Especially when I am a girl, they would treat me as an outsider. When a football match starts, war starts at the same time. I love football but slowly have to accept its subculture - hooliganism as well. 

There is a documentary called English hooligans untold story. It is about English fans going to Germany for the world cup. Some hooligans are banned from going to Germany during world cup. English Police are allowed to patrol the areas in Germany for the first time to tackle the hooligans from England. Sometimes hooligans are not only against the opposing team but also the player in their team.
A few days ago, from The Sun, a group of hooligans of Manchester United asked the player Wayne Rooney in the team to leave the club because the hooligans think his performance was terrible in the recent matches. 

After talking about sexism and hooliganism in sports, I would like to talk about homophobic culture in sports again. Homosexuality is still a taboo in sports, professional soccer players are reticent to come out of the closet. The players are scared that the fans will go crazy and start singing homophobic songs. Another reason of not coming out is that would affect their career, other clubs may not want to hire the gays. One professional player in Germany from the video retired because of fear. He said there is a lot of body contact for team sports and you take shower with your team mates.  That physical contact have something in common with sex. Another lesbian football player state that homophobia in sports is a big problem for male athletes which agrees with the reading from Elling and Jannsens. Because a lot of people expect top female athletes are lesbians, since most people relate female playing sports with masculinity. That makes lesbians athletes not a taboo.  

This is the last post for this blog, I hope you like the topics and enjoy the posts!

See you soon!