Advance essay #3 Israt Jahan "Sports doesn't have to be masculine all the time"

My goals for this paper is for people to realize that sports doesn’t have to be all masculine and for only people that are bulky and strong. I doesn’t have to be someone who is a man and someone who is straight. I think anyone can play sports and it doesn’t matter what they look like they shouldn’t be judge or be harassed. I’m proud of the introduction paragraph because I think I have some good questions to think about in the beginning for people to think about. I think I can improve on the writing part and describing it.

Advanced Essay

In sports, men are usually super masculine and when there’s someone who is gay or have different sexualities or even female it can become a problem and people who are against these things starts to cause problem for others. Because it’s always shown in such a masculine point of view. Sometimes it goes as far as to where they can use a homophobic slur against another person. All of these things made me question “What exactly is masculinity? How would you define masculinity?” ”So are you not masculine if you're gay or other sexuality other than being straight.” “Why are sports so masculine all the time?” “Is there a certain mold that you have to fit in to or to get accepted into what’s so called ‘sports team’?”Why not accept them for who they are? Does it really make a difference or make the team look bad because they don’t look like term “masculine” ` that society put for people.

According to toxic masculinity in sports  I read about what other people feels about sports, and their experience. In this quote Gillian Reese talks about  how her highschool switched up the football team one day with the cheerleaders and it turned out to be fine “With football, guys are the players and girls are the cheerleaders. When I was in high school we had an event called “powderpuff football” where the girls would be the players and the guys would be cheerleaders. Why can’t this be a normal sport?” . I like that they switched up the sexes in football to show that not all the time it has to be the traditional way that society puts it. And if the sports are like this I want people to know that it’s not the end of the world and they don't have to harass other people.

This is story is about a time when I had personal experience with this whole masculinity thing in sports. It was one day when I was 8 years old I had to stay with my cousin because my parents had to get out of town and I had to stay with my cousin and his parents. He was in his teens so he was always moody,always said no to everything and didn’t listen to anyone. I didn’t have anyone to play with me and I had no one to talk with in their house so I chose to go with my cousin and his friends when they were playing cricket which is a sport that southeastern Asians play so I decided that I was going to join their game thinking nothing would go wrong, but boy was that a big mistake. “Can I play with you guys?” I said. They all  looked at me and they looked at my cousin like it was the most weirdest thing that I wanted to play with a group of boys. “What?” my cousin said. “I said can I play with you guys?” I said it louder. “You want to play with us?” one of his friend said “Yeah?” I said like it was the most obvious thing ever. “Get out your not playing with us!” One of the guys said “Yeah you are a girl” “You can’t even throw a ball.” another said “who said I can’t throw a ball?” “I said just get out” said my cousin. Then I walked away towards the garden feeling down because i didn’t understand why I couldn’t play with them just because I’m a girl.

In this quote Reese states her opinion and she also compares sports to dance to show it in a different way for people to understand. “Boys are always said to be more competitive; this is why sports were made for men! But in reality, certain characteristics are not built into you based on your gender. Gender is a social construct as well as gender stereotypes. Some stereotypical adjectives for males are aggressive, heated, and, like I said before, competitive. When you think of a sport such as football, one may want their player to have all of those qualities. When you think of a sport such as dance, one might question someone having those qualities. I think they both can be attributable characteristics to both sports, even though dance is considered “feminine” and football “masculine.”” I really liked how she compared the both to state it in a way that makes you think about both and compare them.

In conclusion I think masculinity is a term that society puts and everyone just goes with it and expects everyone to be that way and it’s more so really focused in sports a lot these days because sports is so big and everyone expects it to be the traditional way for everyone.

Bibliography

Toxic Masculinity In Sports.” The Odyssey Online, 30 Aug. 2017, www.theodysseyonline.com/toxic-masculinity-in-sports