Introduction
Women represent the main group in American sport involved in such activities as archery, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, bicycling, bowling, etc. despite the great achievements and success of women in sport, they have to prove their unique abilities and acquire masculine features important in all kinds of sport. Over the years many efforts were made to get wider women’s access to the excellent sports facilities owned by private and nationalized industries. Many good [private initiatives are successful but generally most proved unsuccessful for the simple reason that apart from altruism, there is no reason why a company should open up its facilities and embark upon additional maintenance and management expense. At the beginning of the 21st century, women in American sport are faced with structural constraints and sexism. Various ideas are toyed with such as rating-relief if dual-use of facilities is agreed, but such ideas have never been sharpened into policies and hard action. Feminists underline that women in sport have to change their identity and follow masculine behavior patterns to compete in professional sport. Thus, these factors lead to accusations of lesbian behavior and homophobia (Shaw and Lee 51).
Participation in sport
In spite of limitations and negative media image of women, they actively participate unprofessional sport. This view is supported by the statistics concerning growth in the number of clubs and teams in professional sports and the present-day ability to play more games due to increased investment in preparation and knowledge generally (Shaw and Lee 52). The growth in facilities for outdoor countryside activities continued to grow as the 1990s gave way to new understanding of physical culture when a number of education authorities, forced to make economies, closed their outdoor centers. The more expensive sports such as sailing, water-skiing, sub-aqua, parascending, hang-gliding, and the new Olympic sport sailboarding, suffered no decline and continued to develop facilities where suitable sites could be found, but suitable water and land sites were becoming more difficult to find.
Provision for sport in attractive surroundings remained a priority with the emphasis on the need for very many small sports halls to supplement and complement the district-scale sports centers that now existed. Although the policy of joint provision which had been shown to be 40 percent more cost-effective than separate provision was still very much alive in the early part of the eighties opportunities for this type of development was scarce as fewer new schools were built. One of the women pioneers in sports comments: “the competition that matters most is not that which occurs in arenas or on playing filed but rather the struggle of control of sports organizations and resources, which remains the basis of men’s dominance of the sports world even as women approach equal rates of participation” (O’Reilly and Calm 2).
Conclusion
Women participate in sport as athletes and referees but they have deprived a chance to control the sport and change its facilities and rules in accordance with women’s needs. The latter factor is perhaps the most remarkable of all. From a fairly obscure sport, only some kinds of sport are included in sports center developments, added to tennis, golf and rugby clubs and become a target for the commercial market to develop. Today, women in sports demand greater participation in management and administration of sport, and equal access of women leaders in development and growth programs. Also, feminists try to change the image of women in sport (popularized by mass media) towards more feminine representation and description.
Works Cited
O’Reilly, J., Calm, S. K. Women and Sports in the United States: A Documentary Reader. Northeastern, 2007.
Shaw, S. M., and Lee, J. Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions, 4th edition, 2001.