Sports, it’s a very powerful social change because it teaches women to be strong, have confidence and raises self-esteem. It changes them. In general, there is this perception of sports that embodies positive values and morals, such as cooperation, mutual respect, fair play and equality. However, sport can also reflect the prejudices that divide society, the most often seen one is gender. There is still this separation between the genders within these sports as men are considered more athletic than women.
At Cardinal Carter Catholic High School while both the male and female’s soccer teams are very much alike in terms of rules, practices and activities, the fact that they are segregated by their sex and how each gender performs influences the development of gender advantages that favour masculinity. When it comes to performances, attitudes, authorities, and opportunities, men are treated different from women. From years of experience of playing on a school soccer team, in terms of how the game is taught, both the male and female teams were alike.
The basic guideline rules remained the same, along with the practice drills and activities. There were also no differentiation in the amount of practices, games, or tournaments given to each team. Even though, there does tend to be a difference in the competitiveness between boys and girls, I personally found myself to be extremely competitive against other female teams, as were the boys against the teams in their own leagues. Within sports boys and girls grow up being taught and learning the same why but, society puts a label on the potential and talent each person has within that sport based on to their gender.
This is when the segregation beings. When it comes to the two genders in sports, males and females are often treated fairly different due to their sex. Growing up in a Catholic High School students are taught quite a bit about equality, but once the kids would hit the soccer field those teachings were disregarded. Coaches often took it easy on the girls, whereas the boy’s team were pushed to their limits. The girl’s team was treated like house league soccer, whereas the boy’s team considered to be at a rep level.
Eventually, due to the way in which the coaches would treat the girls compared to the boys it began to affect the females performances and attitudes towards that game. As the boys prospered in the sport, the female team began to take it less and less serious. This unfortunate segregation between the level of performance expected from each team is what influenced the superiority to the male teams over the women’s, which then gives more privileges to the men. At Cardinal Carter majority of the popular sports teams were made of males along with the male teams getting more luxurious items than the female teams.
As the boys were more successful they were rewarded with more adequate equipment, facilities, and coaches, which further hindered the girls ability to perform at the same level as the boys. Many of the values, attitudes, and behaviours that have a negative impact on the development of sports tend to center on gender. Once this negative attitude is applied to how coaches chose to approach teaching the girls on the team, it began to deteriorate their own confidence when playing the sport.
My team was made up of four or five girls who genuinely wanted to learn new skills and play the game, whereas the rest found the practices as more of a social event that they showed up to for an hour, twice a week. The less interest shown and motivation give towards our team, caused us to develop the same feelings towards the game and not care as much. Whereas the boys were taught well and given the confidence and motivation needed in order to prosper within the sport. This then allows the boys to get better and go further with the sport compared to the girls.
Opportunities for girls at the interscholastic level had been reduced because of an overall attitude that girls could not play or had no desire to participate in sports at the same competitive level as boys” (Gender Equality and Women in Sports. p. 489). Historically, women have been discriminated against in sports and have not been provided with the same opportunities as men. An extensive discrepancy has existed between men’s and women’s sports in the supply of enough equipment, training facilities, coaching staff, playing fields, trainers, and adequate funding.
Therefore, although men and women are taught the same way and learn the same basic rules and skills, they get treated differently along with being presented with different opportunities. There is a segregation between the sexes which influences the development of gender advantages that usually work in the men’s team favour. This is something that is seen at Cardinal Carter Catholic High School, along with many others, as the boy’s teams often get the more adequate equipment, facilities, and coaches, as people believe that the boys have more potential than the girls.