Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus 9/21/09

I will never forget in high school I babysat for my french teacher and her youngest son was never interested in sports unlike his older brother. My teacher would always joke about him asking for crochet lessons and singing lessons. He once showed me this video of a guy named Nick Pitera singing and I still till this day believe this guy can sign both soprano and beratone. While most would say that he is "gay" i believe he is a man who has a strong passion for singing. While you might be thinking what does this have to do with sports?...During one of our class discussions we talked about barbie and g.i. joe. This reminded of that video because women who are not in stereotypical sports are considered "lesbians". The men n our class said that they like fimine sports because of the uniforms. I understand than men are meant to be masculine however if they were a female who enjoyed competition and other qualities of sports they may have a different outlook on female sports.

Childhood Icons 9/21/09

Everyone could probably say that growing up that were interested in at least one sport and followed a sports teams or professional sports player. In class on September 4th we talked about Micheal Jordan and the how we perceived the photo. A lot of the students agreed that Micheal Jordan had a huge impact on the sport of basketball growing up. I can remember always watching Mia Hamm with my sister because she a soccer player. I will also always remember when the women's united states Olympic team came to Columbus, Ohio and i got to meet them all. It would be interesting to hear the other students what they remember from their childhood.

That same week we also discussed gender testing and the whole ordeal of Casta Semenya. When I signed up for this class i knew i would be learning about gender, however i never knew what kind of discussions and topics i would learn. In the short amount of time that we have been in this class i have already learned so much about how discriminating men are towards womens sports and athletes. I can agree that pictures of Casta Semenya are very hard to distinguish between a man and women however, for a women athlete to work so hard at the sport she is so passionate about it must be so frustrating for her to always be hearing talk about her gender. I also am looking foward to hearing what the men say in our class about what sports are considered sports and which ones are feminine.

Introduction

Hello!.. I am going to give a brief introduction about myself and then continue into my sports history and expectations for the class.

My name is Casey Ross, I am senior graduating with a degree in Event Planning/Tourism. I have completed field work in Oahu, Hawaii and Charleston, SC. I am hoping upon graduation to continue traveling throughout the world and gain knowledge in the event planning industry. I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. I have one older sister and wonderful parents.

I grew up like many children experimenting in different sports. I started off at a very early age swimming and taking gymnastics classes. I also tried, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and softball. I continued swimming until I was about 8 when i took a stronger interest in softball. During all of this i was very passionate about gymnastics and was on a competitive gymnastics team. I quit softball for track during middle school I also then took gymnastics into cheerleading. I continued to run track until my sophomore year of high school and stuck with cheerleading until graduation. I considered cheering in college but the passion wasn't strong enough. Although i miss the competition, i am glad i have choose not to participate in the university's cheerleading program.

Now that i mainly just enjoy watching sports, of coarse being from Columbus, I am a huge buckeyes fan. My family tries to go to the national championships yearly. I also really enjoy watching Notre Dame and Cleveland Browns football. Recently my good friend, Nick Moore was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings so i have been keeping up with their stats as well. I also enjoy going to Cleveland Indians games and Chicago Cubs. I have never been to a Cleveland Cavs game, but with the Lebron era thats happening I would love to go to a game this season.

Last semester I took SM 221 with Keith and really enjoyed the class, it feels good to be a woman and be knowledgeable on the history of sports. With this class being based upon gender and sports I am very excited to be able to voice my opinion and know that women can understand sports and have some meaning to it. After being in class about a month I can tell Dr.Spencer has some great articles to discuss and I am already very interested and enjoy discussing during class. I am eager for the rest of the semester.