The cult of manliness and Victorian Era challenged the former social constructs of gender. Women began challenging Victorian gender arrangements and started to participate in previously male arenas of public work, politics, urban life, and even athletics. These women were referred to as the “New Women.” (Cahn 344) However, the male gender ideology labeled aggression, physicality, competitive spirit, and athletic skill as masculine attributes necessary for achieving true manliness. Thus, sport and male privileges are interconnected through the structures and ideologies of American sport. Critics, such as physicans, sportswriters, male athletic officials, and public educators felt sports would create manly women who would not be attractive to men and sports would induce same sex love (Cahn 347). They also stated that women athletes were in danger of adopting masculine dress, talk, and mannerisms. They felt that too much exercise would damage female reproductive organs and they would not be able to have children. There was even the extreme that said that the excitement of sport would cause women to lose control, conjuring up images of frenzied, distraught co-eds on the verge of moral, physical, and emotional breakdown (Cahn 345). In the 1880s, there was the bicycle and basketball craze of women. This challenged the former constructs of gender because leaving the home during this time period was considered “dangerous”. It was a big deal that women were leaving their homes. However, the Play Day Era reinforced social constructs of gender. Teams from different areas came to one location and they played not against, but with each other in a less competitive manner. The sports were set up in a controlled manner so that they were not going against the status quo. By decreasing competition and controlling the games so that they were fun, women were reverted back to the way females “should” participate.
Today, many sports are constructed so that the taller, stronger, faster, and more lengthy individual has the greatest chance of winning. Often, weight comes into play also. These characteristics are bias to men, allowing men to be dominant to women when these characteristics are included. Through these structures, the basic ideology is that men are better at sports than women.

According to Mike Messner, sexuality and gender have been differently constructed for women and for men in sport. Messner says that sport participation offers a normalizing equation for men: athleticism=masculinity=heterosexuality. But for women, the equation has always been more paradoxal: are women athletic? feminine? Heterosexual? It is not fair, when a man participates in sports, he is “normal.” But, if a women participates she is considered manly or a lesbian.

Messner’s critique of homosexual as a category is that he feels heirarchial and reductionist theories have incorrectly named groups of people, such as working class women, and that they made naïve assumptions (228). He believes that women can participate in sports and still remain the same gender, feminine or masculine. He challenges the binary with the purpose of disrupting past assumptions about homosexuals, such as the example above.

Messner’s “Sexual Story” consisted of two parts, both providing an example of heterosexuality. First, Messner and his teammates rejected Timmy as a member of their basketball team by being aggressive towards him and calling him a faggot. Secondly, Messner realized that in order to step up his own game and become a better player he needed to be more aggressive. As a result, during practice he set a pick on Timmy and elbowed him directly in the stomach, making it look like an accident. He felt that picking on the weakest member of their team would make him feel tough. My own experience refers back to high school basketball. I was undersized, being 5’2”, but so was our team as a whole. However, we made up for this disadvantage by bring physical and aggressive. When rebounding, I would use my elbows and give a more aggressive bump with my butt. Or, when driving in the lane for a lay-up I may have lowered my shoulder so they would get out of my way.