Gender and Ideology

The cult of manliness along with the Victorian Era and the Play Day Era both reinforce and challenge former social constructions of gender. One of the social constructions involves patriarchy and the all around dominance of men over women. It proposed an ideology and or system of personal relationships that legitimate male power over women and the services they provide. Sage says, "the cult of manliness was set up as a way to promote a broadly based devotion to manly ideals, to toughen up boys for life's ordeals." (139) A bunch of organizations such as the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, and athletic clubs preach this. This goes along with the whole concept of patriarchy which is to promote and maintain male dominance. Sage says, "a patriarchal society is driven by a male-centered ideology rooted in a male worldview; mainstream thought is male-stream thought." (59) Organizations such as the ones listed above are helping to maintain that very ideology. The Play Day Era came about to get women involved with sports and helping them break out of the previous ideology which had denied them equal opportunity in sports. Teams and organizations were forming all around the country to help get women active. The Olympic Games are an example of how women were starting to be included into main-stream sport, because up until 1932 no women were allowed to take part of the games, but now over half of the participants in today's Olympic Games are in fact women. The Victorian Era both reinforced and challenged former social constructions in that it led to women having more opportunities to succeed by having a better education, better labor, and having the right to divorce. Even though women were starting to gain more recognition they still were being shut down by the sporting world. They were discouraged from watching and participating in sports because women were supposed to be passive, obedient and attractive to her male companions. Dominant notions of sex and gender have shaped the way sport is structured today by still having a primary focus on male sports especially in the media because men's sports are what sell to the public as opposed to women and generally are more entertaining to watch than women's sports.

Mike Messner claims that one of the dominant notions of men playing sports is to promote their heterosexuality and masculinity. He says, "an important dimension of this reconstruction of hegemonic masculinity through sport involved a linkage between masculinity and heterosexuality." (224) It is different for women, the perception of participating in a sport calls into question women's sexuality along with gender, it says that the more athletic and masculine women possess the higher the chance of them being a lesbian. Messner gives a great equation that shows the difference in the dominant notions that have been constructed. For men it's athleticism=masculinity=heterosexuality. For women it's athleticism? femininity? heterosexuality? (225) Messner thinks that it is best to challenge the binary and create a new discourse and practice that disrupts and fractures the gay and lesbian categories.

In Messner's sexual story there are a few instances of when heterosexuality was performed. One was when Messner first had a crush on Timmy and rejected the idea by insulting him and going along with all of his teammates and their aggression towards Timmy. By having hatred or power over someone who is weak or small helps further establish your heterosexuality with your peers and puts you into a "normal" category. Another time was when Messner felt that he wasn't being enough of an aggressive basketball player and decided to throw an elbow into Timmy's chest which made him fall to the ground. Instead of choosing to do this on another teammate he decided to find the weakest one who couldn't stand up for himself and that was Timmy. When I was in 10th grade I was on the basketball team for my high school and their was a kid who went out for the team who was gay and nobody knew about. It got out to everyone on the team that he was in fact gay and for the remainder of the season nobody would hardly speak to him or even acknowledge that he even existed.