“Every game in which you take part requires skill, dexterity, coolness, and courage with presence of mind. Cultivate and play all the sports you can open air, and they will make you a fitter type of perfect womanhood” (p.3) This could be one of the most important readings in the book because of the huge impact all the events in the writing had on our society. I believe that the main purpose of this article is to tell about women and there past dealing with sports and also sports fashion. One thing I was so surprised to learn in this academic reading is that women used magazines, books and instruction manuals such as “Ladies’ Home Journal” to learn techniques of different sports and also the appropriate dress for each activity. These manuals and books led women to have confidence and competence in the new activities they would be participating in. All of the physical training in this period challenged past expectations for women because of all the acquired skills and strength. The ability to compete really started the change of gender roles and really challenged the past ways. The reading also shows how huge it was for women to be able to form a comfortable and appropriate dress while participating in athletics. Women were able to change uncomfortable clothing to a loser dress so that moving around was easy to do during sports. This reading really has so much information targeted at many different people. Women’s athletes are a main intended audience and should know a lot of this information. I liked this reading for many different reasons, it had quotes that were interesting and made the article more personal. The reading also had some journal references that really showed that it was reliable. One thing that could have made the article even more effective is more statistics. Overall this reading was effective but not perfect!

I personally was very inspired by the writing A Woman In A Man’s World. A writer/ reporter named Winifred Black otherwise known as “Annie Laurie” is talked about as a hero to women. She was one of the first popular women’s reporters that reported on men’s sports.I believe some of the purposes of this article is to show that women can do a man’s job at the same caliber and women typically show more emotion when writing. A quote from the reading really explains that many women did believe that this was true, “ A woman has a distinct advantage over a man in reporting, if she has sense enough to balance her qualities”(Elwood-Akers, 1989, p.865). What exactly made Winifred so popular was the perspective she took on her reports. It was new and different from most of the men sports reporters. Rather than looking at athletes as inhuman objects, Winifred looked and wrote about them as humans with feelings and told there stories in her writings. Another quality that was different about Winifred’s writings is that she used them to make comment on gender roles in American society of the era. Some of the most daring things Winifred would do is dress up as a man and attend prize-fights or other sporting events not allowed for women and tell about them in her reports. She would ask surprising questions in interviews such as “how does it feel inflicting pain like that on another human being?”. This piece of writing was aimed at writers and reporters. To me this article was effective because it inspired me. Women trying to change the sexism in our society started long ago and put up a great fight so us women need to follow there example of bravery and tenacity.

In the article there were various effective points made.  Even though it may not seem so to everyone, women’s sports have come such a long way in the media. Women’s sports have gone from almost non-existent coverage to widespread and predominant.  Even though media coverage has grown tremendously the article mentions that producers, editors and announcers of women’s sports are often demeaning.  Some ways that the article identifies common barriers to gender fairness in media coverage include “marking” women’s broadcasts, demeaning the contribution of women athletes by downplaying their skills, focusing on women athletes physical attributes and marking women as sex objects, and giving women less broadcasting time with sporting events.  In the article is an example of hegemony in women’s sports broadcasts. In a pre-game show for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship it is mentioned that preferred readings for the broadcast are “Connecticut’s Invincibility”, “Women’s Basketball is For Real”, and “Damsel in Distress”. These readings were intended to provide viewers an understanding to the contest.  During the NCAA championship pre-game shows announcers referred to UCONN as invincible with making little to no mention of Oklahoma in many comments and speeches.  After UCONN’s win over Oklahoma ESPN started to stress the theme of “women’s game has arrived” to hard and their effectiveness was limited. One main and huge point this article makes is how the “damsel of distress” theme was played with Sheri Coale in the NCAA championship. It was believed and said by many that Coale would not be where she was today if it was not for UCONN’S male head coach Geno Auriemma who helped her get her job. Auriemma was seen as the master of women’s basketball why Coale was given a “cheerleading” role. To back this up there are many video shots and clips of Coale on the sideline cheering and clapping while being criticized by announcers for her poor strategy and giving her negative commentary. Throughout the game the women playing in the games were referred to as “kids” and never “girls”. This is another example of why women’s athletics is announced very different from men’s games. As shown in the article media has a huge impact on our society and frequently reinforces hegemony in women’s athletics.

The article “Being A Man”, is one of the first articles that I have read that mostly concentrates on the negative characteristics of being a man. The author of this article has a huge purpose for writing the article and I believe that it is to show people how society has many general characteristics for what men should be and what men should do to be considered “manly” and if they don’t behave in such a way are considered weird or different. The author brought up the phrase “Be a man!” and what that really means. In society today being a man is looked at as being stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly and stop thinking. The author points out how our youth is taught this concept and they see so many examples of it that this is what they are pressured to do even if they don’t agree with it. He writes a little about Femininity and how women have another role to follow and are taught to follow it at a young age. Being lady-like is something all girls are taught and assumed to do their whole life. Something in the article stuck out to me that I realize is extremely true today. When boys turn 13-16 and looking at meeting girls they are extremely pressured to join sports, be an athlete in order to be the cool kid. This to me is true and real because when I was younger girls are taught to think an athletic man is more appealing. It is shown in this article than men are pressured to be a typical man by showing certain characteristics. I believe the audience that this reading was intended for is young men that are athletes or non-athletes. I think this article was more of an opinion piece but if the author was trying to educate people needed to have more facts and approach with a different tone. I do think that this article was effective and has so many great points that should be shared with boys around the world.

“When a girl joins the ball team, what is she afraid the boys will do?”….Soccer. The reading for today started out with this very joke taken from a book called Sports Riddles from 1989. This quote is a perfect example of some of the things that we will read about in the book Sports, Rhetoric and Gender. The purpose of todays reading was not only to go over the many subjects that will be discussed in depth in the book but to get our minds thinking about the issues to think about for later on. This reading is directed at women and men athletes or even someone who is picking up the book and wants to see what it is really about. Sport specific books are starting to grow amongst academics. There are “how-to’s”, biographies or even just simple statistics. I also found a huge concept of this reading very interesting. It was mentioned that Greek athletes have been our gods and that even today we still worship huge sports stars and spend crazy amounts of money on events and sell sports-related sponsorships. I believe that this shows how much our culture revolves around sports and athletic events. Sports serves as fantasies, a escape from work, provides relationships and entertainment.  This comment made in the book is very true and real for me. My life does include a very big amount of sports in all the different ways I mentioned. This article overall was very effective in showing people the main points discussed later on in the book.

In this reading there were some extremely good facts and information that everyone needs to be told. One of the many important purposes of this reading was to talk about what is broadcasted on sports networks and how much of that influences boys today. Everyone knows that NFL, MLB, NBA and men’s college sports are almost always televised over women’s sports. When I read this article the facts I got were very shocking to me. Sportscenter has 2.9% of time devoted to women’s sports. This statistic really showed me that sports and athletics are really dominated by males. I learned thought that it is not only games but announcers and commentators who are also ruled by white males. Commercials are also a reinforcer that it is a man’s world. Women are almost always accompanied by men in commercials and rarely have the spotlight to themselves. A part of the reading that I was very passionate about was the women are portrayed as sexy props for men’s successful sport performances. The cheerleaders shown at football games or wrestling when the women comes out with very skimpy outfits and high heels. . I think that this idea of women as sexy props is extremely true and is seen all over. I think this article hits the nail on the head for many problems today. The audience of this article would be boys and girls that watch any sports network or just television in general. Most of everything brought up is very true and needs to be changed. To me this article was very effective because its points out so many things that I would love to be different.

While reading this article I realized that there are many purposes that LZ Granderson wrote this article. One of the first points he brings up is should a male athlete get more attention because he is good-looking. I believe he opened the article with this statement because society is not use to big male athletes posing for fashion articles or photo shoots to promote something in general. The next controversial issue he brings up is a male athlete leaving for paternity leave during post-season. A man having paternity leave is very different then what people are use to, especially an important athlete. This brings up that his family is more important to him than the sport. I do agree that males should be allowed to have paternity leave. If the man wants to spend time with his family and values it over sports then it should be perfectly okay and the same as when a female takes maternity leave. The next point the author brings up is the controversy of women announcing men’s sports games. Many men make horrible sexist comments like ““Women don’t tell people about how to play football for the same reason I don’t tell people how to give birth,” said Fergrat. This shows that many men expect women to stick to having children and they will be manly and take care of all athletics and working jobs. He points out that men are still trying to keep athletics as “manly” as possible. I think this is because they can not accept change and want control over sports. I think this article has many perfect examples of things that are said and goes on in today’s society with athletics. To me this article was extremely effective because of all the examples it had in it about women staying home to give birth or the problems people have with men doing women’s “jobs”.

The reading Throw Like A girl really makes a lot of great and important points in today’s society. In my opinion one of the purposes of this article is to show how males have maintained a physical superiority to women’s athletes. A great example of this is feminizing a males athletic ability is considered an insult but to masculinize a female athlete’s performance is considered a compliment. I also think it is very interesting how today the expression “Throw like a girl” is a critique for a mans ability. This reading also mentions that women who show to much ability are labeled “mannish” and have the stigma of lesbianism. This statement is very true and happens regularly in today’s society. Another really interesting fact that I really did not even notice in athletics is how men and women are referred to in sports. Girls in sports are usually called women/girls but ladies is something much different. In the reading it described how girls feel that being referred to as “ladies” makes them sound extremely girly and not like they are competing in athletics. The term “ladies” also links the girls to men and can sound like dependency girls have on men. This is a great point because men are not regularly referred to as gentlemen in sports. I believe that this article is aimed at women’s athletes and is very important for them to read. I liked most things about this article because it showed how being classified as a girl for men is still considered a huge insult and shows that even though the discrimination has weakened it is still there.

The article Sportswomanship reading was very true and real for me. This article is very informative about woman playing sports in the past and present. I believe this article was written for various reasons. One main reason is to show how women have progressed athletically in the years past. Women all around the world have gone from being divided completely from men to being able to compete in the same sports and have taken almost as big as role as many men have. Another purpose of this reading is to show how women that compete in sports have more of a masculine image. This reading was possibly aimed at young women of today’s society that compete in athletics or any physical activity. I liked many points brought up in this reading. One main point brought up was how different men and woman are when it comes to sports. Studies show that women college basketball athletes were found to have higher moral values than males. They also had higher task orientation but lower ego orientation than male players. I think that this is very true and that women are more likely to concentrate on morals and sportsmanship and that many men who play athletics have a very big ego compared to women. Another point I liked in the article was that recently sportsmanship has been declining in both male and females sports. I think that this article was very effective and brought up good history of the rise of woman’s sports and also the way female and males sports are different.