Masculinity: Expectations of Male Athletes

      A typical view of athletes in high school is the football players who tend to be classified as jocks. There is a stigma of what an athlete should be and that is normally a masculine football player who puts his all in the game. In the school setting there is a social hierarchy and the jocks are seen to be at the top. The kings, rulers of the school and typically the stars of their home towns. Parents believe that team sports will teach their sons to be team players and teach them moral character. High school athletes are also pressured by their peers to participate in sports because that would make them more accepted in the hierarchy. There is also a sense of higher self-esteem in student athletes though that could be because of their actual success or the glorification of male athletes in the U.S. (Anderson 262-264). These male athletes have the expectations of their entire lives being surrounded by their sport, and they are also supposed to be seen as faster, stronger, and better at their sports than their female counterparts.

      Male sports teams promote masculinity and feel that every team member should be giving everything they have at all times and those are the norms that should be followed. There are people who feel that being a part of a team that encourages this type of all or nothing masculinity promotes the loss of each team members sense of self. They lose who they are because these athletes are too focused on the benefits of the team. Athletes are told that their sport should be their top priority and if it isn't or if they refuse to make the sacrifices they are not team players. There is also a stigma that if they do not follow the rules of masculinity and being a strong and powerful athlete they are given a mark of shame. This is why many gay athletes tend to hide their sexual orientation until late into their athletic career or even as late as after they have retired. The higher up an athlete is in the hierarchy the farther they actually have to fall, which prevents those who may not want to follow the rules from actually speaking their minds. If an athlete does not follow the rules of masculinity he may be seen as weak or unsuccessful. One reason they do not want to be seen as different is because they do not want to be seen as failures because not being masculine enough is seen as not being athletic or as serious in the sport as everyone expects them to be (Anderson 261-268).

      Orthodox masculinity shows homophobia, sexist, and anti-feminine tendencies and is typically what we see in males who are athletes (Anderson 258). Though many high school games are typically only broadcasting locally, we also get to see a lot of male sports covered by major television channels and newspapers. There is more male coverage in sports than female sports teams covered whether it is professional sports or just a local town newspaper (Messner, Duncan, and Jensen 123). Men dominate the sports culture and are seen to be superior because of the fact that they are stronger and win when it comes to having bigger muscles (Messner, Duncan, and Jensen 121-122). This difference in strength is why there is a separation of men and women in sports. This segregation is said to be protecting the women from the violence of them men (Anderson 258). There is also a difference between how men and women are seen in sports. If a man succeeds it is typically attributed to his talent and strength whereas if a woman athlete succeeds she is said to be lucky. On the other hand a male athlete's failure is linked to the opponents success and strength while a female athlete's failure is said to be because she is unfocused or does not have her head in the game. Female athletes are also identified by their gender during television broadcast of their games while male athletes were never labeled by gender. This includes the females being called young women, ladies, or girls while males were typically only identified as men or young men never boys (Messner, Duncan, and Jensen 126-130).

      Sports have always had a stigma of promoting masculinity in one way or another, and there will also always be a difference between male and female athletics. If an athlete does not give their all during a game does not mean that they are not masculine. Men who do not prove to be masculine have people who view them as nonathletic. Masculinity does not make an athlete, there are many athletes out there who are aggressive on the field or the court but outside their sports they can be seen as feminine. The reason that male sports get more news time than female sports is because as a society we focus on the attractiveness of the strength and power of male sports and not just on the talent of the athletes.  

-Lyndsey

Works Cited

Anderson, Eric. ""I Used to Think Women Were Weak": Orthodox Masculinity, Gender Segregation, and Sport." Sociological Forum 23.2 (2008): 257-80. JSTOR. Web. 21 Feb. 2013 <http://jstor.org/stable/20110264>.

Messner, M. A., M. C. Duncan, and K. Jensen. "SEPARATING THE MEN FROM THE GIRLS:: The Gendered Language of Televised Sports." Gender & Society 7.1 (1993): 121-37. JSTOR. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://jstor.org/stable/190027>.