Meaningful Narratives (1)

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Porterville College *

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301

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Philosophy

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Apr 3, 2024

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pdf

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6

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All answers should be in paragraph form. Aside from specific personal examples, please provide sources for cited evidence. NB Chapters 8 and 11 in your textbook can provide valuable evidence to inform your answer! 1. Consider your experiences with physical activity and then reflect on how you experienced aspects of social differences (i.e. social class, gender, race, (dis)ability, religion, sexual orientation, and their intersection) in sport and physical activity. Please provide a specific example to illustrate. I have been physically active my whole life, being a three-sport athlete throughout middle school and high school. Through my years of playing multiple sports, I have experienced many aspects of social differences. However the most prevalent in my experience has to be gender disparities. I started noticing these differences between male and female sports early on in my high school career. Male sports received more media attention, more funding for their programs, and more recognition than female sports did. A specific example that I can think of is when the varsity volleyball team won the CIF Valley Champs. We were all very excited about this and all the hard work we had put in to get to where we were. However, at the CIF Valley game, there were no supporters from our school present. This was because our school had done no advertising or social media announcements that we had even made it to Valley. In contrast, when the school's boy's football team was in their first game of playoffs, the school announced it and posted it on social media like crazy. This caused a huge turnout for the game and many people were talking
about it the whole week. This example just goes to show how the advertising and public attention given to male and female athletes is so disproportionate. 2. Using these personal experiences and historical examples, apply the concept of “Collective Narrative” to explain how culture, identity, and otherness (who belongs/who doesn’t) are woven into sporting narratives both now and in the past. Please provide one paragraph reflecting on the present and one paragraph for the past. The concept of “Collective Narrative” in the context of sports plays a significant role in culture, identity, and inclusion/exclusion. In the past, women were not allowed to compete in sports as it had historically been a privilege reserved for men only. As the years went on, however, people started to realize that the victories of female athletes held the same weight as those of men. This prompted the Soviet Union to “select 40 females, who composed 13 percent of the team” for the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952 (Kretchmar et al 282). By 1988 the number of female athletes in the Helsinki Olympic Games increased to 162. This sparked a growing wave of other countries recruiting female athletes to defend the victories by women. However, while there was an increase in women athletes most of these opportunities reflected a racial divide. “Women of color have long faced biases in sport that highlight the important need to appreciate how intersectionality influences discrimination in sport” (Kretchmar et al 283). While white women have experienced sexism while trying to claim their place in sports, blacks, Latinas, Asians, and other minorities experienced sexism and racism. These historical collective narratives were marked by exclusivity, reinforcing the idea of who belonged and who didn't based on gender and race. Over time, societal shifts and advocacy have contributed to rewriting
these past “Collective Narratives” which has opened up sports to a diverse representation of gender, race, and ethnicity. Currently, sports are increasingly recognized as a platform for inclusivity, challenging these historical norms and biases. There have been various athletes from diverse backgrounds being highlighted for their talents, which contributes to a more inclusive view of sports. For example, Simone Biles, an African American gymnast has rewrote the narrative surrounding her sport. She is recognized for her extreme talent in gymnastics and breaks the stereotype of what a gymnast should “look” like or where they should have grown up. She has been an inspiration to other minorities in gymnastics and proves to everyone that your background should not be a limiting factor in pursuing success in sports. Athletes, like Simon Biles, who come from underrepresented backgrounds are contributing a more inclusive “Collective Narrative” in contemporary time. 3. How do the collective narratives described above link to the concepts of power, privilege and intersectionality? The collective narratives in sports, as described above, are linked to the concepts of power, privilege, and intersectionality. When looking at sports and recognizing who’s included and who gets to play we get a better understanding of how “power and privilege work on a social level” (Gleaves 7:37, Slide ). Society elevates people with power and privilege which links to the concept of collective narratives in sports because we can see which groups are elevated and have influence through sports. For example, in the lecture, we can see that in the photo of the Women’s National Soccer Team. The first thing that can be noticed is the disproportionate number of white women in the photo compared to women of color. There is also a lack of
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