In “Becoming 100% Straight,” Michael A. Messner takes a look
at how gender and sexual identities are constructed in regards to sports.
Messner describes how sports aided in proving his masculinity and also
discusses Tom Waddell’s experience with masculinity in sports. Messner brings
to light how sports can aid in the construction of both gender and sexual
identities for men and women.
Tom Waddell, a gay athlete, used sports as his closet that
kept him from coming out as a gay man. Waddell participated in football,
gymnastics, and track and field, all of which helped him prove his masculinity
by hiding the fact that he was gay. Waddell was “fully conscious of entering
sports and constructing a masculine/heterosexual athletic identity precisely
because he feared being revealed as gay” (FF 36, p. 403).
Messner, on the other hand, was a straight man who played
basketball in high school. To prove his masculinity, Messner used aggression
toward a teammate. He elbowed a fellow basketball player in order to show that
he was masculine. Messner refers to this as his “moment of engagement with
hegemonic masculinity” (FF 36, p. 402).
In both of these cases, sports were used to construct both
gender and sexual identities. While Waddell’s construction was a very
deliberate attempt to seem more manly and heterosexual, Messner’s was a more
subconscious construction that he did not realize he was creating at the time.
Men, most of the time without even realizing their doing it, use sports as a
way to show or prove that they are men, and more specifically heterosexual men.
As Messner describes this, “heterosexuality and masculinity were not something
we ‘were,’ but something we were doing”
(FF 36, p. 403).
Women who play sports are treated differently than men who
play sports because society has deemed sports as masculine activities,
especially in the culture of the United States. I think this might be because historically,
men have participated in sports more than women, and even today men’s sports are
seen more in the media. This idea that sports are masculine activities has made
for differences in the way men and women who play sports are treated in regards
to gender and sexual identities. When a man plays sports, he is almost always seen
as a masculine, heterosexual man, but when a woman plays sports she is sometimes
called butch or a lesbian. I think this is unfair to both men and women to be
given specific gender and sexual identities based solely on their participation
in a sport or activity.
You’ve made a great point about how the media might influence the level of participation in sports for men and women. I think it’s especially important to consider how much more popular men’s sports are then women’s sports, even when there are both version, like in basketball. Some of the most popular sports, however (and best paying) are all-male, like baseball and football. In a very real way, this makes sports not only more accessible, but also more appealing for men since the extra media attention paid to men’s sports means male athletes will be paid more. In fact, it’s one of the most lucrative careers for men, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the case for women, so more men will participate in sports than women, thus perpetuating the whole “sports are men’s domain” worldview.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it’s unfair that there are such strict gender and sexuality scripts in sports, but I’m not sure it’s something that can conceivably be changed. Part of the problem is that sports themselves are masculine: sports are about dominance and aggression. There is no room for passivity or compassion in the sports arena, so until dominance and aggression become more neutral characteristics, sports will be seen as a venue for constructing masculinity, and until queer sexualities become acceptable in both masculine and feminine contexts, sports will continue to be a breeding ground for heterosexual masculinity.