Basketball Gender Discrimination

Many studies from past centuries in countless different fields of research have shown that there are rampant increases of gender inequality in many fields. In the field of sports, this not something unheard of, but it has been a common trend in the past games and sports events. Several sociologists have been reported to claim that sport inequality has taken several dimensions such as gender, wealth and social class categories. These are said to have been brought about by cultural and economics differences which are the key players to discrimination in all sort of classification. (Wolff, 1994)

Although many people despite sport and games, there is a major role played by both in bridging and alleviate the norm of community cultures that brings social discrimination leading to inequality. While focusing on my favorite hobby basketball, I am first and foremost thrilled to give brief details of its history. Basketball is a sport that started at about two centuries ago. It begun in early December in the year 1891 by a famous man named James Naismith. This was at a time when there was serious search for indoor games intended to keep students occupied. Furthermore, like any other sporting event, it was not only for the keeping of the student occupied but also for the maintenance of proper level of fitness during the winter season in New England. This followed after the search for proper game that was neither tough nor too poorly designed in door plays. During such early times, the event used peach baskets which were replaced in the early twentieth century by metal hoops with blackboards. The rules which the founders of the game wrote were found in the year 2006 and were basically invented from children’s game named duck and rock. (Wolff, 1994)

Basketball game was first played by a group of young men in the young Christian gymnasium in the year 1892. This was founded in London England, which was an institutional organization that was dedicated to using Christian principles into practice to young men. The living conditions for these young men were not safe and were often neglected, thus the beginning of the game was a hallmark of bring change in the sociological arena, as this was a way substituting there life on the streets for prayer and bible study and drawing them into a new social kind of life. However, the first encounter of the composition of the sport participants is of great concern in terms of inequality. Despite the noble ideas of George William for starting such an organization which were quite unusual, and which crossed the inflexible lines that separated all the different social classes of all those lived in the England boundary; the whole community was entirely male dominated. Perhaps, this was as a result of the first intentions for creation of male institution and not an institution for both genders. Thus, the young men’s Christian association was initially composed mostly by males, showing an enormous skewed trend in the men’s side in the institutional composition. Following the interest of some of the enlightened women, there was a great struggle between the basketball leaders of the early period to include females this particular sport. However, this was all in vanity. The only achievement that yielded from such struggles was the abolishment of admitting the only males to the organization and soon or later the association would provide opportunities to all men, women and even children without any regard to racial, religious or nationality back grounds. (Axthelm, 1971

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The inclusion of women in the organization was a major advantage to them. This paved way and gave them a chance to in the participation of this today’s world class game. They had opportunities to watch how the game was organized and they even got entertained as they watch the men play. The inclusion of females to actively take part in such a game was a real ordeal. Men were unwilling to help the women group to establish their own club. Therefore, it took a lot of time to establish a women’s team as they lack full support from the expert side of men. It took all the efforts of one of the females to come up with a women’s. This work was under taken by a renowned woman in the history of basketball by the name Senda Bereson. She set on his work to teach women basketball in the year of 1892, which is almost at one year after the men’s play had begun. In her work, she was fascinated by the new sport and the values it could teach. Thus she organized the first women’s basketball in the following year. In order to improve the performances of the women play, she used to watch plays performed by smith’s freshmen as they played against sophomores. She was also interested on improving the rules and regulations for the female basketball. Her work of writing new guidelines came into culmination when she published the first women’s basketball guide. This furthered the spreading of the women basketball and lead to improvement of the version of basketball for women. (Bonsor, 2006)

Although, the spreading of basketball from young men’s Christian association was one of the major events that saw great removal social barriers in most countries, by enabling the spreading of the game throughout the United States and Canada. But due to some misuse of their initial ideas by some groups in the development and improvement of the game standards, within a few decades, they had to discourage the new sport terming it as rough and rowdy game. The game had turned to be involved in spreading political and economic challenges. Women had started to turn into lesbians during such games. However, their efforts to do away with it were all in vain. Amateur clubs, colleges and professional clubs could quickly fill the void and argument the spread faster than before. Pro –league were formed in the beginning of the twentieth century which included the national basketball league. This was put in place to protect all the players from exploitation and to promote a lesser rough game. The parties who were involved were supposed to provide security to men, boy. (Axthelm, 1971)

With the effect of the spreading of the game, many institutions also embraced it. By the time it had gone for over five decades, basketball had become a major college sport. This in turn gave birth to the growth of professional basketball. Following the great concerns of different people from all parts of the worlds in the early 20s to 30s, the game had been almost in practice in all the developed and developing countries. Due to its introduction in most countries, the game has formed part in the major competitions that are taking place in the today’s world competitions. This includes Olympic Games and many more others. This as one way of providing opportunities to people to interact, it gave people from different continents, countries and ethnic groups to come together and share experiences and cultural traditions from different backgrounds. From the early researches, it is shown that head’s school played its first women’s inter-institutional game against the University of California in the year of 1892. From this period, several women clubs were started for basketball events. This lead to increased intercollegiate women’s game. However most of the coaches of that time were men drawn from the different part of the states. Thus, there was disparity in the composition of the bodies which were charged with the responsibilities of organizing, managing and controlling the sport. This perhaps was due to the fact that most men had developed much interest in the event, thus they had an ease of learning the requirements and operation of the game. At the same time most college seemed to encourage the participation of men in the play than any other group. For instances, by the start of the twentieth century, many colleges and universities in the United States began sponsoring men’s sports. These included universities such as university of Chicago, Columbia University, university of Manniseto, U.S. naval academy, university of Utah, Yale University and many more others. This accelerated the disparity in the participation of men to women basketball. Another major reason which might have contributed to this disparity is that, historical, participation of women in sports was discouraged or banned as they were viewed as people with tender masculine who could not tolerate the strenuous stretching activities which are involved in sports and games. (Axthelm, 1971):

However, as civilization and education enlighment dawned to most of the people, the altitude towards the basketball sporting changed with time in an amazing manner. In the developed countries where civilization and technology begun, they had formed several folds of women’s basketball committees in the year 1910. These were geared towards the mitigation of girls’ child performances in sports. National and international women’s basketball executive committees were also raised. These could organize women’s basketball competitions in different colleges and universities. In addition, they were in charge of state tournaments and nationals women’s basketball championships hence being mandated with the same powers as men. On the same empowerment, men and women were given the same equality, and this resulted into the application of men rules in the play game. The women’s competitions of 1940s were conducted using the men’s rule hence it is said that women played against men in several championships. (Wolff, 1991)

In the recent reports from different broadcasting and news papers, journals and internet sources, it has been reviewed that there is enough supporting bodies for the both men a basketball. These bodies ensures that there enough money to spent on equipments, training, travel and uniforms for males. They are mostly focusing on both the child boy child in schools, so there is more disparity which is being experienced in the present and the near future. To a larger extend, they are committed to ensuring that even cheering opportunities are areas of discrimination. By mixing the cheering squads for both men and women, they can try to alleviate the general phenomenon of favourism. Once the authorities are on their hand, they have recently fired and made reshuffling of coaches in various men and women basketball teams. There are increases in percentages in the admissions of recruits for women to curb the problem of disparity which was created by the old practices and culture by our forefathers. (Bonsor, 2006)

References:

Axthelm, P. (1971): The City Game.

Wolff, A. (1991):100 Years of Hoops.

Wolff, A. (1994): The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia .2nd Ed.

Bonsor, K. (2006): Newly found documents shed light on basketball’s birth.

ESPN.com. Associated Press -Retrieved on 2008-03-7.