Page 555 - Sociology and You

What does this mean? What does it mean that everywhere, women are running, shooting bas- kets, getting sweaty and exhausted and eu- phoric? What changes when a woman becomes an athlete?
Everything.
On playing fields and in gyms across America, women are engaged in a contest with higher stakes than trophies or ribbons or even prize money. Through women’s play, and through their huddles behind the scenes, they are deciding who American women will be. Not just what games they will play, but what role they will play in this still-young nation. Not only what their bodies will look like, but what their bodies can do.
Chapter 15 Sport 525 What Does it Mean
insidiously
developing in a stealthy and harmful manner so gradually as to become established before being apparent
prerequisite
required as a prior condition to something
relishing
being pleased with or gratified by
This West Virginia high school student is a starter on her school’s only varsity basketball team.
Adapted from Mariah Burton Nelson. “We Don’t Like Football, Do We?” in D. Stanley Eitzen, Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology, 5th ed., St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1996, pp. 25–26.
Read and React
1. State briefly the main point of this article.
2. What do you think is the author’s viewpoint
on the relationship between gender and
sport? Do you agree with him?
3. Do you believe that attitudes in the United
States regarding female participation in
sport are changing? Explain.
4. From which theoretical perspective is the
author writing? Use examples to illustrate that perspective.