To her exploration of violence and sexuality in masculine sports,
Nelson (Are We Winning Yet?, 1991) brings formidable journalistic
skills, a sharp anecdotal style, and incisive logic. Nelson argues
that violent and aggressive sports - football, basketball, hockey -
generate a hostile attitude toward women and function, in fact, as
refuges for men from the threat of women's liberation. Women are
tolerated as decorative (cheerleaders, topless dancers in "sports"
bars, swimsuit cover girls) or derided, femininity being equated
with masculine failure: Coaches belittle losing teams for "playing
like girls" and award tampons to their worst players. An
interesting historical chapter traces "the crisis in masculinity"
to changes in male occupations in the 19th century from the
physical to the more cerebral, and to women's discovering the
bicycle, which gave them a freedom of motion that paralleled their
growing political freedom. She offers cogent interpretations of the
soap-opera quality of "sports talk," the sexual language of sport
itself, "dominance bonding," or identifying with powerful symbols,
the role of college sports in gang rape, the unhealthy dimensions
of male coaches training female athletes, and an exceptionally
funny and poignant chapter on female journalists in male locker
rooms (with some great explanations of why men do not like to be
seen nude). She analyzes the role of media, especially advertising,
in producing a "cognitive dissonance," the discrepancy between
popular images of athletes and the reality, that lies behind much
of the misogyny expressed by both spectators of and participants in
the "manly" sports. Nelson disregards the role of hormones, the
economy, even of war, in shaping the emotional tone and sexual
biases of masculine sports. But her emphasis on journalism,
especially women journalists as agents for change, however single-
and perhaps simpleminded, is at least tangible and certainly
thought-provoking. (Kirkus Reviews)
Women's freedom and their freedom of movement have always advanced
in tandem; early in this century, a suffragette's most potent
symbol was her bicycle. Sports are central to American culture and
the socialization of children, yet the "manly" sports world rarely
offers women a level playing field. Despite laws to the contrary,
all-male teams routinely garner a vastly disproportionate share of
college athletic budgets; despite two decades of "sensitivity, "
men's sports are still a fertile breeding ground for Neanderthal
attitudes about women; and despite increased awareness of sexual
harassment, affairs between male coaches and underage female
players are commonplace and gang rape of college women by male
athletes has almost become a cliche. As women have become
increasingly involved in sports, those "manly" American sports -
football, basketball, hockey - have seen an enormous explosion in
popularity, at least partly because they are seen as an inviolably
male domain. Many women are finding that participation in sports
can make them healthier, happier, more confident in their own
abilities, more at home in their own skins, better able to compete
with men in the workplace. Is this what men are fleeing when they
watch football? Astute, provocative, and full of original research,
Mariah Burton Nelson's book paves the way for a new awareness of
the American culture of sports and its pervasive effects on both
women and men.
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