Background of Role of Body in Sports - Literature review Example

Background of Role of Body in Sports Genders and gender roles have long been discussed in academic research studies. Be it general life, academic life, professional life or sports life, we always differentiates between the behavior of males and females. It is a general belief that males have stronger bodies whereas, females have delicate bodies. Similarly, some works and professions are thought to be only for men or only for women. There must not be any restriction in participating in sports and sporting events on the basis of gender or body related bias. All including males, females, transgender, disabled, gay and lesbian should be provided with level playing field to participate in all aspects of life. This paper aims at critically reviewing how embodying a ‘different’ sporting body can be restrictive and oppressive. It comes up with no surprise that there are many assumed set of believes that prevail in all parts of the world. People generally like to adhere to these set of believes. Among these believes, those believes that involves genders and gender roles are in central place. There are numerous believes about the genders and gender roles in our society (Orlansky, R., 2004). Among these believes, some only apply to personal lives of individuals whereas, some believes touch the lives of masses around the world. Believes that touch the lives of masses generally include role of gender in sports and role of gender in workplace. Is There any Link between Sports and Bodies? Now we will go deeper inside the topic of body and sports. Let us start with the sport of bodybuilding. Bodybuilding is set of technology based weight lifting activities that are aimed at building the muscles of body. In the past, people could not image that one day females would start performing bodybuilding practices. In this modern world we all know that both males and females perform bodybuilding practices. The perspective behind taking bodybuilding exercises is different for different people. Some people take body building exercises to beautify shape of their body whereas, some people just take weightlifting exercises to burn extra calories to keep their body smart (Wesely, J.K., 2001). Disabled Bodies Another general belief of people is that disabled people must not participate in sports because their body does not allow them to participate in sports. Moreover, some people say that the bodies of disabled persons are not meant for participating in sports and sporting competitions. This is not a rational approach towards this issue. It is matte of grief to see people attributing bad names for the people who take the plunge and participate in sporting events. This is a matter of pride for people who even cannot walk but struggle and they try to run with artificial legs! Thus participation of disabled persons in sports and sporting competitions must not be restrictive and oppressive (Wellard, I., 2002). Sports, body and taunts of coaches is strongly connected to each other. It is common phenomenon that sports coaches call bad name for people who are slow, fat, or too thin. These coaches openly say bad things to trainees. These coaches keep praising a particular shape and physique for sportsperson. Due to this behavior of coaches many people, especially females leave training (Peers, D. 2012). On the other hand the people who try to continue and mange to continue training with suck kind of coaches suffer from mantle illnesses. So it is necessary for trainers and coaches not to use abusive language for the people who do not conform to the assumed rules of the game. Trainers and coaches must give such kind of player due time to adapt to the needs of the game (Sparkes, A.C., 1997). Big sporting events in the world are full of all human beings. We can take the examples of different sporting events. All men and women are allowed to participate on the basis of merit. This is a very good convention to provide all human beings with equal opportunities. Moreover, all major sports and Olympics allow disabled people to participate in their respective sporting event. Today, many sports like, race and cricket allow the teams of disabled persons to participate without any barrier. There are still many restrictions and barriers for women and disabled persons to freely participate in sports. In order to get best sportspersons, we must try to eliminate all barriers coming the way of merit for sports (Wellard, I., 2006). There are still cultural and religious barriers around the world about the sports of women. Many countries of the world still think that the sports suits of women are intimate and the make the women sexually attractive. Such kind of notions is baseless. If we think on the basis of reality we can understand that different sports require different kind of suits. For example, it is not possible for women to compete for gymnastic by wearing a jogging suit. Similarly it is not possible for women to swim by wearing a full dress. Players of some countries follow full dress codes while participating in sports and sometimes they perform well. But this is another case because by following full dresses make it difficult for a person to play a game like gymnastic and swimming (Sparkes, A.C., Brighton, J., & Inkle, K., 2012). There are certain standards and limitations for some sports that bar the people from participating to those people who do not comprise on those standards. Many of these standards are not based on reality at all. Most of the times, these standards are just assumed rules. Some sports require from players to adapt to particular body shape. For example, it is general believe of the people that in order to become a good football player, one must be a slim and smart person. Similarly, it is assumed that a wrestler must be fat and healthy. By saying so, we ignore that a healthy person may also be a good footballer. Similarly we also ignore the fact that many successful wrestlers are not so much big, healthy and fat (Lindemann, K., 2010) There are so many sports in this world that we cannot come up with an actual figure about the total number of sports in this world. This is not the topic here. This paper is supposed to critically review how embodying a different sporting body can be restrictive and oppressive. People around the world have different believes and views about the role of men and women in sports. Some people think that only men should play sports because their bodies are strong and they generally have more stamina and endurance than that of women (Peers, D., 2012). This is not a rational approach towards this issue. Their views are just based on the physical strengths of people. They do not take in to consideration the notion of equality of all human beings regardless of one’s gender (Wesely, J.K., 2001). On the other hand, people who believe in equality of disabled men and disabled women in every walk of life are of the view that men and women are equal. Both men and women must enjoy and exercise equal rights. These people are of the view that women must provide with level playing field in all aspects of life. They must not be denied any right just because of a natural attribute of their body: weakness as compared to men. Thus participation of disabled persons in sports and sporting competitions must not be restrictive and oppressive. To participate in sports and academic and professional lives is the birth right of all girls and women regardless of their body conditions (Markula, P., 1995). There is a lot of uproar of the benefits of sports and exercise in the world but we do not think equally for men and women (Wellard, I., 2006). Majority of us are of the view that the involvement of disabled people in sports is not good because the it is not that much entertaining. This is purely a selfish approach and a discriminating approach towards disabled people. There is no denying the fact that disabled people are fond of playing games and they are passionate about participating in sports and sporting events. How can we stop them from participating in sports of their choice just because of the bodily disabilities? This attitude towards women and girls is not free from consequences. This behavior is adding to deprivation of the girls and women thereby leading to personality issues (Dayna B. Daniels., 2009). Oppressive and restrictive conditions have far reaching affects on the victim. Similarly, oppression and restriction based on bodily attributes in sports is also damaging for victims. The affects of oppression are multidimensional. Moreover, there is a direct link between somatic affects of trauma and embodied responses to oppression (D. Margaret Costa, Sharon Ruth Guthrie., 1994). There is big role of body language in identifying the oppressive behavior. Thus it is important to avoid any oppression and restriction based on bodily conditions in sports as there are dire affects of such king of behavior on the victim. There is a need to end this oppressive behavior from our sports to offer level playing field to all men, women and disabled persons (Nancy Rae Johnson., 2007). Although many disabled people are barred by the belief that disabled persons cannot participate in the sport but increasing number of disabled persons around the world are changing this self imposed rule. In this modern day world we can see that disabled persons are participating in all sports no matter how much difficult are these sports (Danielle DiCarlo., 2009). Football, cricket, hockey, tennis, squash, all these games are so much difficult and require higher level of stamina and endurance to play. Despite the difficulty level of these and other games, disabled persons are actively participating in these games but also in other more difficult sporting events like, Marathon and Ironman Triathlon. Today, we see professional sports teams of disabled persons of all major sports. Even there is an increasing trend of training disabled persons within teams of men (Lindemann, K., 2010). Due to obsession with body and believes associated with body, we a moving away from the essence of the sports which is the performances of individuals and teams. It is well established fact that sports and sporting events are a form of entertainment for all. Both male and female like to watch sports. The favorite sport of Europeans is Football, similarly, the countries that have been part of the British Empire like to play and watch Cricket. A large number of people take sports as more than a game. They associate certain believe with the game. Many a times, viewers do not consider the performances of player but they just focus on the clothes and bodies of the players. Thus these people just focus on bodily attributes which are not important in sports. The only important thing that a player can give to sport is performance (Robert J. Schinke, Kerry R. McGannon. (2015). There are some other social and psychological factors that are causing damages to the sports. For example, all the players of different sports assume that people are watching them and they must take into consideration of their appearance to leave a positive image on fans. Due to this reason, the attention of players is getting diverted from the game towards unnecessary things like appearance. This is another reason the disabled people are getting discouraged to play in big sporting events. Professional sportswomen are more conscious about their looks during the game. These disabled people also assume that people are watching them and they will think negatively if they do not look good. Due to this reason they pay more attention to their body instead of performance. This notion bars other disabled people to play who think that people will call names after watching their performance (Nancy Rae Johnson., 2007). Conclusion At the end of this critical literature review we can summarize all the important points discussed in this paper. First and foremost point of this paper is to prove that there is no importance of bodily attributes of individuals in sports. All human beings are equal and must be provided with equal opportunities of participating in sports. We must also think beyond the winning and losing. We must also consider the consequences of discrimination against others based on their body. Embodying a different sporting body cannot be restrictive and oppressive. References Wesely, J.K. (2001). Negotiating gender: Bodybuilding and the natural / unnatural continuum. Sociology of Sport Journal 18, 162-180. Markula, P. (1995). Firm but shapely, fit but sexy, strong but thin: the postmodern aerobicizing female bodies. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12(4), 424-453. Wellard, I. (2002). Men, sport, body performance and the maintenance of ‘exclusive masculinity’. Leisure Studies 21 (3-4); 235-247 Sparkes, A.C. (1997). Ethnographic fiction and representing the absent other. Sport, Education and Society, 2 (1) 25-40. Wellard, I. (2006). Able bodies and sport participation: social constructions of physical ability for gendered and sexually identified bodies. Sport, Education and Society. 11 (2), 105-119. Sparkes, A.C., Brighton, J., & Inkle, K. (2012). Disabled sporting bodies as sexual beings: Reflections and challenges. In: Anderson, E. &Hargreaves, J. (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Sport, Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge. Lindemann, K. (2010) Cleaning up my (father’s) mess: narrative containments of "leaky" masculinities. Qualitative Inquiry, 16 (1), pp.29-38. Peers, D. (2012). Interrogating disability: the (de)composition of a recovering Paralympian. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 4 (2), pp. 175-188 Smith, B. (2013). Sporting spinal cord injuries, social relations, and rehabilitation narratives: an ethnographic creative non-fiction of becoming disabled through sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 30, pp. 132-152. Orlansky, R. (2004). Moving Forward: Sports and Gender in Modern. [Online] Japan. Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 5:1 (2007), 71-83. Available at: . [14th April 2015] Danielle DiCarlo. (2009). Real Women Don’t Wear Pink: Experience of the Body among Female Ice Hockey Athletes. 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