Cool Pose

Urban dictionary defines swag as appearance, style, or the way he or she represents themselves.

Websters dictionary defines ego as the self especially contrasted with another self or the world.

These are two terms that people use when a person is quote un quote " cool". And in 1990 Micheal Jordan was the start of what people believed was cool. However, with Jordans success he was still facing the issue of being an African American and fighting racism. The only thing Jordan had on his side was the game of basketball. Do all people believe that African Americans carry a cool pose, swag, or a higher ego to fill a void of feel judge for being African American?

The attached picture is from the Minnesota Alumni Association. This picture shows a certain level of " cool pose". However, if another picture was added and a different race was scoring as well and also showed a certain level of " cool pose" what would be different? I feel that any race should be able to show feeling comfortable in their sport and should not have to create a different cool pose, ego, or swag to feel accepted.

Sex In The Media

On Tuesday's class discussion things got a bit "specific" as Dr.Spencer would word it. The topic of sex appeal is arrousing to anyone, I don't care what you say. It is a known fact, sex sells. The pictures of the " only the ball should bounce" ad's caused for a lot of different opinions and views. There is a new Rebook commerical that I recently saw and thought to myself the sex appeal in this commerical is almost taking away from the product. However, from a males perspective he might be thinking differently.

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sjMDPhZN-o

The title on youtube of this video is "sexy new rebook easytone commerical 2009.wow!!" This can already show the sex appeal with the title without even watching the clip. Is it okay for women to cause this sex appeal because women are "supposed" to be sexy.

David Beckam also reveals his sexy side with advertising armani briefs. Both of these ads represent sex appeal in different forms, yet at the same time represent a product. These ads can be in comparison to the "only the ball should bounce" ads however, does the sex appeal over power the product?

Asianization in America

Asian Influences : Sports Influences:

-Chinese Food -2008 Beijing Olympics
-Kung Fu Panda - Kabayshi, winner of the hot dog eating contest
-Honda - Sumo Wrestling


These are some of the examples of the influences that we talked about in class. I started thinking to myself how does asianization in America influence athletes? And then my next thought was do the stereotypes that apply to Asians apply for athletes as well? For example, Asian people perform well on mathematical testing and African American men perform well in basketball. However, as I learned in class this is not completely true. Yao Ming, is an Asian superstar in basketball. In the following link is the amazing story of Yao Ming's background and how he became the basketball player he is today.
http://http://www.time.com/time/asia/2003/heroes/yao_ming.html

If nobody ever took a chance to step outside of the stereotypical box than would anyone ever succeed? I do not follow men's or women's golf but I was shocked to see that Asian women are winning the LPGA and earning the highest amount of money, because the stereotypical women's golf player is a suburban area female who grew up living in a gold community. It is great to see that these women did step outside the box and have succeeded so well for themselves. I can say for myself I can understand the influences above and how they influence people however, why do only Asian influences play such a large impact on society?

Women In The Media

When starting to complete research for my blog I knew I wanted to write about women in the media, because previous to our class discussion I was not aware how rare it is for women to meet the front page of a news articles, magazine covers, or online websites. Unless the media is geared towards women for example Shape Magazine, women athletes have a hard time reaching the top. When I typed into google front page articles + women's sports I found it interesting that women's soccer and tennis were the first four headlines. It draws a conclusion in my head, that is it possible women do not make front page covers because there are not as many "popular" star athletes in the four main disvison of sports. For example: football, baskteball, baseball, and soccer. While women have the opportunity to exceed in basketball and softball, the other two main division sports are not even an option as professional teams go. I have posted a link of women in the media and how they are under represented. Is this website familiar to anyone? I myself do not follow womens sports, therefore I was not aware until all of our discussions in how little of credit they actually do recieve.

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_coverage.cfm

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.