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Kelsey Ohlbaum
Mrs. Pisani-Babich
English 137H
Paradigm Shift Essay
The Heart of a Champion: The Modern Female Athlete
I’ve played soccer virtually my entire life. When I was five years old I joined
my first team. I’d be lying if I said I remembered the name of said team, but I do
remember our color, red, and more importantly my number, nine. My number
wasn’t nine for any old reason either, I chose, no I fought for that number because
someone else wore it. Someone who’s mixture of strength, talent, and grace I found
utterly beautiful, even at that young age. I wanted to be like her, just like her. I
wanted to be Mia Hamm. It never even occurred to me that if I had been born even
ten years earlier society would have forced me to completely shy away from being
an athlete. It never occurred to me that those adjectives I mentioned earlier would
have never been used to describe a female athlete in the past.
Throughout history a male dominated society has placed limitations on
women, in the work place, in involvement in politics and in participation in sports.
Men played, performed and competed while women cheered and applauded. That’s
what was expected and for the most part that’s what happened. Women’s
opportunities in sports were, and perhaps still are, far less than their male
counterpart. Through poor media coverage of women’s sports by primarily malerun organizations, its advancement suffered tremendously. The television industry
poorly advertised women’s sporting events and never aired them in prime time.
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Female athletes were viewed as too aggressive, too burley, too masculine. Females
were supposed to obedient and mild mannered, things that athletes just weren’t.
Schoolgirls idolized models, actresses, singers, but never athletes. These practices,
however, have and are continuing to change due to aspects of women’s sports that
in the past decade have gotten people to start paying attention. Today, the portrayal
of female athletes as determined, hardworking woman, with remarkable talent, and
powerfully beautiful physiques, has transformed the tom-boy-esque perception of
female athletes into a more “strong but sexy” view. The athletic capabilities and
success’ of the female body along with their mental toughness have shifted the
characteristics female athletes possess into desirable traits for both women and
men causing drastic increases in attention to, as well as, participation in female
sports.
Dating as far back as the beginning of our country, mothers raised their
daughters to be girly, kind, timid and obedient, or at least tried. While in their
youth, girls were allowed to play with the boys in sports and other “manly” doings,
as girls grew older this privilege was stripped from them. As girls reach their teens
it was more appropriate for them to date a soccer player instead of aspire to be one.
Their acceptable activities -cheering, spectating, supporting- all served to groom
them to be proper housewives, a job description that did not include partaking in
athletics. As time progressed, however, female athletics began to become
somewhat, however small this percentage was, accepted due in large part to their
premier in the Olympics. In the 1900 Olympics, women’s sports were first added,
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the two sports being golf and tennis. By 1912, women’s swimming was also added
and by 1928 track and field, as well as gymnastics. However, as more traditionally
masculine sports began being added an increased emphasis was placed on the
above all importance of the feminine appearance of the female athletes (Dutot 2)..
Female athletes themselves shunned overly masculine bodies, which basically
meant any real show of muscle. Eleanor Holm, winner of 100 meter backstroke in
the 1932 Olympics was quoted saying, “Its great fun to swim and a great thrill to
compete in the Olympics, but the moment I find my swimming is making me athletic
looking, giving me big, bulky muscles, making me look like an Amazon instead of a
woman, I’ll toss it to one side” (Guttman 145). During this time period, athletic body
types were undesirable; they were undesirable because they were seen as manly.
Manly bodies, manly tendencies, anything masculine at all was immediately
associated with lesbianism. It was for this reason that girls and women for the most
part stayed away from sports.
Though we live in a world today where homosexuality has become extremely
accepted, it wasn’t always that way. Homosexuality was viewed as a plague, a
disease of some sort that needed to be cured. No girl wanted to be associated with
this disgraceful perception and no parent, especially, wanted their child to be a part
of the stigma. Parents were a large part of the dissuasion to participate in female
sports. They cringed at the perception that perhaps their daughter was, god forbid, a
lesbian, backed only by the sheer fact that she wished to partake in a sport, a boy’s
game. They prayed for the day when their child would outgrow what was viewed as
an immature stage. It was a common view for society to see female athletes as
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homosexual due to the fact that they wanted to act like men, by participating sports.
For this reason, girls who were born with inherent athletic ability, and given todays
society would have been extremely talented athletes were not able to thrive out of
fear of being looked down upon. However, by the 1990’s this all began to change. In
a campaign by Nike in 1995 called “If You Let Me Play Sports,” a chord was struck
with parents nationwide. In a specifically sensational commercial, young girls were
featured spitting out statistics associated with being a female athlete while they
were filmed playing a sport. These facts included, “I will like myself more,” “I will
have more self confidence,” “I will suffer less depression,” “I will be less likely to get
pregnant before I want to,” “I will learn what it means to be strong.” The line “If you
let me play sports,” is repeated throughout, and out of the mouth of babes, making it
seem like the answer is so obvious. Girls should play sports. One event in particular
responded to this new idea.
In 1972, 294,015 teenage girls participated in high school athletics in comparison
to the 3,666,917 teenage boys who did (Women's Sports Foundation). Yet by 2007, that
number jumped to 3,057,266 to the boys 4,372,115, a 940% increase (Women’s Sports
Foundation). Why the drastic change? Well, in 1999 the Woman’s World Cup was
brought to America. From June 19 through July 10, 1999, the American public cared -deeply, passionately, emotionally -- about the Women's National Team and the games it
played (Dorr). Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Brandi Chastain became household names.
Chastain's black sports bra, exposed when she pulled off her white No.6 jersey in a
moment of glee after scoring the winning goal against China, became a pop-culture icon.
The beauty and strength America found in the women who won a world cup became
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idolized by millions of girls nation wide. Men hung posters of Chastain’s exposed, strong
physique in their rooms. Athletic build, competitiveness, mental and physical strength
was no longer manly it was sexy and beautiful.
Today, female sports are more respected than ever. People are watching, and
they’re enjoying watching. Hope Solo, the goalie for todays Woman’s National Soccer
Team, Alicia Sacramone, an Olympic silver medalist in gymnastics, and Gretchen Beiler,
a professional half-pipe snowboarder, were featured in Sports Illustrated “Body” Issue.
However, it was not the fact that they were naked that made the issue enticing to read, it
was the fact that Sports Illustrated chose to show case their bodies due to their athletic
builds, due to the amazing abilities their bodies are capable of. The same goes for the
following year when up and coming soccer star, Alex Morgan was featured. In her
interview following the feature, she spoke of her determination, hard work, will power,
and pride in her strength and athletic prowess. In Addition to Sports Illustrated, Nike, a
top company in the sports industry, has put out numerous ads in the past ten years
pertaining to female athletes. In a commercial released in 2004 entitled “I feel pretty,”
Maria Sharapova, a Russian-American tennis star reminds the audience when she delivers
a ferocious back hand, that in the end what makes her beautiful is her athleticism and
fierce competitiveness not just her pretty face. An ad that really sums up this shift in
views however, is a recently realized Nike campaign commercial to celebrate the 40th
anniversary of a 1972 law passed banning discrimination against women in federally
funded sports. It starts off with an elderly woman proclaiming “When I was growing up,
girls just didn’t run in public…” another voice then chimes in “people weren’t used to
women being so passionate, it scared them…” another voice ads “then I realized it
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doesn’t really matter what other people think. I’m a fashion model… who can dunk. I’m
a girl, that doesn’t mean I have to wear a skirt, that doesn’t mean I can’t get all fired up.”
The final voice really hits the message home, “they used to say that girl is crazy, but then
I just kept winning.”
Respect for female sports has increased ten fold in the last forty or so years, a
majority of that growth happening within the passed ten to fifteen. Female athletes are
just as prevalent as male athletes today (Women’s Sports Foundation). With the recent
success’ of female athletes in the 2012 Summer Olympics, it can even be said that female
athletes, in the United States, are fiercer competitors than their male counterpart. For the
first time ever, the U.S. Olympic team was predominantly women. Women were
responsible for winning 60% of the overall medal count for America, including 29 of the
46 golds. Their success on the playing field, court, pool, or whatever surface they chose
to play on/in has proven that women athletes are a force to be reckoned with. That
coupled with their poise, beauty, and strength off the field has shown that the attributes
that female athletes posses can be and are a part of the splendor that is being a girl.
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Works Consulted
Dorr, Vic, Jr. "Memorable Summer of '99 Helped Change Women's Sports."
Richmond Times-Dispatch. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2012.
<http://www2.timesdispatch.com/sports/2009/jul/10/socc10_20090709-223206ar-37772/>.
Dutot, Carolyn L. "Femininity, Sexuality and Sport: A Case Study of Female
Inter-University Varsity Athletes." University of Windsor (Canada), 2000. Canada:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I. Web. 26 Oct. 2012.
Guttmann, Allen. "Play Days and Muscle Molls." Women's Sports: A History.
New York: Columbia UP, 1991. 145. Print.
Women's Sports Foundation. Play Fair: A Title IX Playbook for Victory. Rep.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web.