Midterm #1 Prep Flashcards
Why does gender sexuality and sport matter?
- Many people still face barriers in sport, like girls and women, transgender athletes and other marginalized identities
Why is sport an integral part of the culture of a nation?
It has the ability to shape perceptions and influence public opinion
How has the United Nations highlighted the potential for sport to do good?
They highlighted using sport as a way to reduce discrimination and inequality, specifically empowering girls and women
What does research say are the benefits of sport?
- Enhancing health and well being
- Fostering empowerment
- Facilitating social inclusion
- Challenging gender norms
What is the sociological imagination?
Looks at how our personal experiences are related to broader social and historical structures
Why can the work of sociologists be so controversial?
When sociologists look at relationships, it can be calling for changes that upset the status quo
What are the points of power and performance sports?
- Push past human limits
- Achieve excellence through competition
- Control and monitor athletes bodies
- Tryout and selection process
- Hierarchical authroity framework
- Opponents are “enemies”
What are the points of pleasure and participation sports?
- Emphasis on the connection between… people, mind and body, the physical activity and the environment
- Personal expression and empowerment, enjoyment, health, and mutual concern
- Inclusive of people of different skill levels and abilities
- Democratic decision making and minimal hierarchy
- Opponents not enemies… working with opponents to test your skills
Is the power and performance model or the pleasure or participation model linked to inequality according to sociologist?
The power and performance model
Why does one model promote inequality?
It naturalizes and promotes competative values
Society is socialized to accpet that rewards are distributed with competition and that those who have power and wealth in society must have earned it
What is one of the most noticable results of feminism in Canada?
The presence of girls and owmen in sports
How do some scholars define feminism?
A movement that tries to explain opression of women and tries to change it
What is a broader definition of feminism?
It is about envisioning and enacting a world free from discrimination
What is heteronormativity?
How social institutions, like education, popular music, the media, and sports, value and validate heterosexuality, over other types of sexualities, to the point where it is considered the “norm”
What is sex?
Biological differences between males and females, intersex people
What is gender?
An idea that has been developed and modified over time in order to classify certain types of behaviours
People are able to identify with their sex, or they can have a different self-conception of their gender
Sex and gender are both what catatgories?
Binary
What is biological determinism?
The belief that boys and girls are genetically hardwired to appreciate and particiapate in certain sports (that align with norms of masculinity and femininity
What is male preserve?
The idea that sports are, fundamentally, a male activity or meant for men
What was the male perserve based in and how did it grow out of the history of sport?
- Domain of male identitiy formation
- Association with militarism, conquest
- Presence of very few women athletes
What is sport typing and what are examples?
The idea that some sports are naturally suited to a specific gender
E.g. Figure skating is suited to female atheltes and football and hackey are suited to male athletes
What is social constructionism?
Society is actively created, re-created, and invested with meaning by human beings through social interactions and social institutions
What does it mean to say something is a social construct?
It means that the phenomenon in question is a product of a particular society, not something natural, innate or inevitable
What are key points about social theories?
- They are tools that help us indentify and explain problems in social life
- The are inherently political becasue they address inequality in society
- They are used to question, challenge, interrogate, or explore “taken-for-granted” aspects of life
How do sociologists use social theories?
They use them to study and apply knowledge about sports
How is sociological knowledge developed?
Using social theories, and is developed out of detailed, careful, rigorous research
What do the best theories do?
They describe and explain aspects of social life in logical terms that are consistent with systematic observations of the social world
What is structural functionalism?
- Large scale societal processes
- A given society is a ‘system’ comprimising social institutions that seek equilibrium
What does the structure in structural functionalism refer to?
Refers to the social institutions that provide stability
What does the function in structural functionalism refer to?
All of these contribute to “overall stability of the structure of society”
What are two key points about structural functionalism from 244?
- Sports are postive and prevent juvenille deliquency
- Sports foster socialization
What are the positives of structural functionalism?
- Enhance group bonds and a sense of community
- Helps people to become socialized into societies dominant values
- Are a form of positive entertainment
- Foster national unity and pride
What are critisisms of structural functionalism?
- Doesn’t consider the negative aspects of sport (racism, violence)
- Sports don’t address inequailites, does not account for social problems in a realistic way
- Assumes all groups benefit equally from sports
What is conflict theory?
Sports, escpecially mass spectator sports, are used by the wealthy and powerful to distract the working classes from their economic exploitation
What are major assumptions about conflict theory?
- Capitalist society must exploit workers to function
- Every part of social life revolves around economic functions
- Change only possible if workers rise up and take control of their worker power
What are key research questions for conflict theory?
- What factors allow the wealthy and powerful to use sports to further their interests?
- What rights do athletes have to control the conditions of their work?
What are sports priorities of conflict theory?
- Decreasing power imbalances
- Efforts to unionize athletes
What are the drawbacks of conflict theory?
- No recognition of enjoyment or liberating aspects of sports
- Underestimate other factors contributing to societal inequalites
What are some particular feminist concerns?
Who holds the power to know?
Whose knowledge is valued?
What is patriarchy?
A form of social organization that prioritizes the rights and perspectives of men
Where do sociologists argue that partiarchy persists?
- Positions of power and influence in society (CEOs and politicians)
- In the cultural realm: norms and conventions about care work and naming practices
What are feminist theories used for?
To investigate and challenge traditional notions about sex, gender and sexuality
Consider and analyze personal experiences in relation to broader social conditions
Expose social inequalities (based on sex, gender, and/or sexuality)
- Social institutions and discourses
- Impact on boys and men
What are assumptions about femninist theory and sports?
- Women have been systematically devalued in many societies
- Sports are gendered activites
- Sport as a male perserve and traits associated with femininity are devalued
What are key research questions for feminist theory and sports?
- How do sports perpetuate ideas about what it means to “be a man”?
- How have women, girls and gender-diverse people been excluded?
- Media represenations?
What are sports priorities of feminist theory and sports?
- Transform the culture of sports: “locker-room talk”
- Make space for alternative masculinities
- Expose and challenge expressions of sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in sport
What is the question surrounding naming conventions and matriarchy?
Ex. In Quebec women are not allowed to take a mans last name, only considered if the man is required to take the females
What is the question surrounding the disproportionate enrolment of men vs. Women in certain programs?
Ex. Pink jobs (nursing, teaching) vs. Blue jobs (managerial, math, eng.)
What is the question surrounding language and gender?
Ex. In English we have traditionally defaulted to masculine “he”
“Mankind” instead of “human-kind”
“Mailman”, “fisherman”, “fireman”, “policeman”
Is feminist research simply research about gender?
No: depends on which perspective; feminist research has a SOCIAL aspect (power differential, historic empowerment of women, power hierarchies today show women are still disempowered)
Focuses on voices from the margins: can also focus on other groups who have been marginalized
What is feminist standpoint epistemology?
As a disempowered social group, women (and, by extension, other marginalized ppl) are better equipped to understand some aspects of the social world
What is feminist reflexivity?
Questions of power in research
Feminist participatory action research (F-PAR)
What is feminist postmodern epistemologies?
All knowledge is partial and filtered through our experiences that must be placed in a wider social context that marginalizes women
What does feminist standpoint epistemology research aim to do?
It aims to capture unheard women’s voices
Womenhood is not a universal experience
Who said womanhood is not a universal experience?
Patricia Hill Collin’s
What is feminist reflexivity research?
Questions of relative power in research relationships
(F-PAR) in which participants have more active role
Researchers must themselves have self-awareness
What is feminist postmodern epistemologies research?
No such thing as objective or essential truths, just partial understandings of the world
In research, analyze the language that female athletes use in interviews to speak about themselves by comparing it to, for instance, how female athletes are written about in the media
What is the episetmology of quanitative research?
Positivism: the world can be “known” and observed through objective methods
What are the essential differences of qualitative research?
- Non-numerical
- Epistemology consistent with interpretive approach (such as…“how do we know” stusy of knowledge through objective data gathering
- Values subjectivity
- Purposive sampling desired
- Naturalistic environment (no manipulations)
What are the essential differences of quantatative research?
- Numercial
- Positivist epistemology
- Objective, repeatable, controlled
- Often probability-based (wider population), sampling desired
- Generalization
- Designs: randomized, experimental, etc.
Is qualitative research valid?
Yes.
Human life is about complex perspectives
Give voice to those who are under-represented
Rooted in sound research practices
What outcome has “sport as a male preserve” had on girls and women?
- From exclusion
- To contestation
- To inclusion, with caveats
When did the first wave of feminism begin and who was it lead by?
Began formally in the mid 19th Century and was lead by wealthy, white, Christain women
Emancipation Proclamation: 1863
What were the main objectives of the first wave of feminism?
- The right to vote
- Persons under the law
What were the legal rights of women in Canada in the early 1900s?
- Only men could file for divorce for adultery
- Women were barred by law from home-steading
What was the relationship to religion called?
Temperance movement (elimination of drinking)
When were women recognized as “persons under the law” and have the right to own property?
1929
When did women have provincial and federal voting rights in Canada?
1960
What happened to indigenous women participating in sports after colonization?
They were shoved into smaller settlements and began to adopt a more eurocentric idea of women, and that they were frail
They could no longer particiapte in sports, more narrow forms of exercise
What was happening in the mid 17th Century before feminism and the bicycle?
- Upper class women in New France (Quebec) rode saddleside
- Permitted to travel by sleigh in the winter and carriage in the summer
- Social dancing was important for grace and courtship
What was happening during the first wavr of feminism in sport?
Late 1800s: Formal sport clubs for women (exclusive spaces)
Informal: Upper class women particiapting in light physical activity
End of 19th and beginning of 20th Century: Opportunites growing for team sports
What were some pre-exsisting beliefs about women’s exercise?
- Women were frail and needed male supervision
- Thought that the uterus would dislodge
- Energy draining concerns, not enough energy to bear children or be a mother
What happened during the bicycle craze?
In 1980s the safety bicycle replaced the bone rattler, which ushered in the bicycle craze for upper and middle class women
Took women out of the private sphere of life into the public one
What were some critiques about the safety bike and women?
Critiques on safety, vital energy, propriety and mastrubation!
What was the fashion that went with the safety bike?
Style of the (Amelia) Bloomer
Split knee length pants, which was a catalyst for womens emancipation
What was the bicycle crazes impact on gender?
It challenged social norms and undermined the notion of female fragility
They were able to enter the male, “public” domian of exercise and sport and somewhat shifted public attitudes
What was the timeline for women’s hockey?
Early 1890s: and likely on an informal basis earlier
By 1900: there were dozens of women’s hockey clubs
1920s: working class women’s sports clubs
1922: Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA)
Why was the LOHA rejected by the Canadian Amatuer Hockey Association?
It was said that “other sports provide all necessary scope for them… without personal contact element”
Hockey was seen as too rough for women
Why take historical perpectives?
To understand how sports may have been done differently
(norms are social constructions)
When was the golden ag for women’s professional sport?
1920-1939
Was what the effect of post WWI on womens sports?
Effected gender roles: women stepped into “male” jobs and playign fields and arenas
Participating in sport was normalized for a time
When was the dark age for womens sports?
1939 - 1960
What happened during WWII and post WWII?
A return to traditional societal values
When did particiaption in womens sport drop dramatically and what did that coincide with?
It dropped in 1950s to 1960s and it coincided with the baby boom
What was the All Amercian Girls Professional Baseball League?
It was formed in 1943, but women were not celebrated for athleticism
They had ettiquette training and a beauty kit and were not allowed to cut their hair
Not true emancipation
Who was the second wave of feminism led by?
Led by educated, middle-class women because of greater educational opportunitesand “the pill”
What does mainsteam feminism include?
- Equal pay legislation
- Paid maternity leave
- Removal of glass ceilings
- End sexual exploitation through pornography nad beauty pageants
- Establishment of rape crisis centres
- Change to abortion laws
What does radical feminism include?
- Eliminate stereotypes
- Child rearing practices
- Change education practices
When was the report of the Royal Commission on the status of women introduced?
1970
When was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms amended?
1982
When did title 9 happen in the united states?
1972
What was founded in 1981?
Canadian Association Advancement for Women in Sport (CAAWS)
What drove gender equity quotas?
Gender barrier and sport became a political subject
Accounting for and mandating of gender equity
What were the late 1960s, 70s, and 80s considered?
Considered the most important years of enormous success for Canadian women in sport, despite little financial support
What happened in the global women’s rights movement?
- Changes in professional and domestic lives of women
- Ideological and structural changes
What happened with the health and fitness movement?
- Benefits of physical activity for health: jogging, aerobics, etc
- Prevailing ideas about femininity vs. physical activity for wellness
What is the big BUT about the Canadian success in women in sport during the 60s, 70s and 80s,
Emergent media representations of women athletes
- Patronizing
- Paternalistic
- Sexualized
- Ex. Carling Bassett, tennis player
What happened with increased media coverage of women and girls in sport?
- Helped to legitimize women and girl’s participation, but media themes emphasize thinness and heterosexual femininity
- Most impactful coverage of women in sports and athletes demonstrating skills, body types, and forms of self-presentation that challenge traditional norms
What happened with women’s sport in the 1990s?
Women were eager to enter formerly all-male sports
Women’s athletes activism led to new social roles for women on campus and beyond, and diminished stereotypes
What was the next goal in the 1990s?
Winning sponsors, money for training and attracting popular audiences
Who were key figures in black feminist theory?
Bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, and Alice Walker
What was the idea for black feminist theories?
The idea that the “universal woman” fails to account for diverse forms of oppression
A call for feminist to be critically self-reflective
What are the 3 stereotypes about black women?
Mammy - Cares fo white family, disregards their own personal goals
Jezebel - Seen only for body, an object
Sapphire - Sassy, “angry black women”, manipulative and overbearing
What was Kimberle Chrenshaw’s theory in 1989/1990?
- It was a response to perceived shortcomings of feminist theories and social movements
- This lens or framework considered multiple, intersecting identities and opressions
- “matrix of domination”
What was the book written by Bell Hooks called about the history of subjugation of Black women?
Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism
When did third wave feminism begin and what did it entail?
Began in the 1990s
Connections between theory and activism/advocacy
Increased access to technology
Women of colour and women from the developing world criticized earlier feminist movements
What were the main objectives of third wave feminism?
- Question the idea of the “universal woman”
- Representations of women in media and popular culture
- Anti-racsim, anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism
- Fighting feminist backlash
Who were the key figures of third wave feminism?
- Bell Hooks
- Donna Harroway
- Judith Butler
When did the women steal the show at the Olympics?
1996
What happened during the 1999 womens world cup?
Ticket sales were high, lots of media coverage and Chastain ripped off her shirt
What happened in Canadian sport during the third wave if feminism?
- Canadian girls and women were participating in larger numbers in more activites
- Efforts to make sport more inclusive increased
- Awareness of social issues
When was 4th wave feminism argued to have begun?
2008
What did those who supported the 4th wave contend?
- Less about academic and more about activism
- It us a more inclusive feminism that is more concious of kinds of marginalization and opression
What technology is linked to the 4th wave of feminism?
“hashtag feminism” #MeToo
