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By: Cyrus Walker; Student #: 0703156

Module #1:

Part #1: Defines and analyzes social justice and its importance when discussing expression-based issues. Constructing a world of equality where all people have a shot at achieving whatever they wish seems pretty straightforward, yet the past ideas do not dissipate quickly and must be understood to better ingratiate acceptance going forward. The physical differences between men and women should be accepted and used to identify logical reasoning for fair and inclusive sports when addressing the future.

Prompt: (1)What are the implications of bodies-at-risk discourse and the refusal to understand the health gap from a social justice perspective, according to the authors of this article?

Health risk individualization, stigmatizing vulnerable groups, continuation of inequality, and missed opportunities to enact change are some of the mentioned topics that implicate the body-at-risk discourse. Understanding that men have had much better access to training and focus on aspect that cater to a better athlete reinforces ideas that question if the disparity between men and women’s sports arises from secondary components of a given sport. Personally my only component of exclusive nature in sports in regarding health as it becomes unsafe for contact based sports for men and women to engage in bodily harm as there is a disparity disadvantage to a contestant; yet I would enjoy a unbiased league whereas merit is the only defining factor of inclusivity.

Prompt: (2) How might sport and social justice actually co-exist?

Promoting inclusive mindsets and fostering community development  can lead to positive uptakes in the coexistence of social justice in sports. Overall we like to point out the vast inequalities whereas progress is underway it’s just not a quick undertaking. Rome was not built in a day and though sports have become more inclusive especially over the last decade women in sports are behind due to the advantage men had for so long allowing for a higher disparity of skill to exists through various sports. Such that I’d argue the disparity between men and women in a sport like hockey seems less noticeable whereas the WNBA and NBA seem like two nearly different sports in how they are played and the skill on display. The problem is people watch sports to be entertained and see athletic feats that seem superhuman (at least from my personal perspective) and blaming people for not finding your content engaging is a strange mindset. The bias via sexism is present that is unavoidable but the producer needs to be responsible for convincing the consumer to invest time and effort into something and like sports when there is a female athlete not unlike a Michel Jordan (breaking records, performing inhuman feats and shocking the audience) the average person will find it difficult to find inclusivity as a valid reason to consume media. Look at the recent Disney and various movie based flops that have been failing due to forced forms of equality at the expense of poorly written character and stories. Equality is well on it’s way but socially the world is behind the mindset that feminist mindsets wish to be innated.

Part #2:

Prompt: (1)What is feminism?  What does it mean to you? Choose one of the images below and explain how it captures your understanding of feminism.

Feminism like many things is a movement that receives an undeserved amount of criticism regarding the more extreme members that impairs their ultimate goal of equality and freedom regarding ones rights as a person. As the idea of restricting around 50% of your population’s potential/growth based on gender and racial discrepancies serves to oppose efficiency and progress as the generalization factor people fall back on is based on stereotypical traits. For instance the vast misunderstanding of statistic leads many people to generalize with a given experience or mindset off little evidence. Women have been oppressed and subjugated (not unlike minority groups) for essentially the sum of human civilization, we must strive to not generalize and solve problems at their root instead of at their surface.

Prompt: (2) What are the different kinds of feminism the authors outline and how do they connect to sport?

Women throughout history have expressed Liberal feminist views regarding sports expressing the need for individual autonomy and control ones future. They seek equality through forms of legal reform over uprising which promotes their good intentions. The choice is all they wish, as with choice and true freedom comes humanities hidden potential in various fields beyond sports. There remains scrutiny regarding liberal feminist ideals as it focuses too much on the averages aligning regarding hiring over merit based hiring practices. Equality will allow for (like seen in women’s hockey) in recent year allow for the best athletes from both genders to dominate their respective sports and as sports become more inclusive overtime bias will become an incredibly unliked opinion through social acceptance.

Socialist feminism is a combination of uprooting the patriarchy in leu of creating a new reformed society from scratch but isn’t exclusive in which field of equality it wishes to push. The idea that class based, gender based and race base issues stem from the symbiotic nature that is found at the center of societies current construction. They believe in total societal reform but understand that if the class based differences are minimized or eliminated the structure of society won’t change. Within sports Socialist feminism can help improve the divisive nature between groups and form a new better world of inclusivity and not found at the further disparity of another group.

Radical feminism like it’s name focuses on (not unlike socialist feminism) eliminating the patriarchy at it’s root while associating men as the problem with society seems to focus on male supremacy as the fundamental flaw to society. The stance taken by this radical form of feminism leads to a discriminatory self-marginalization as socialist beliefs aim for an equal society whereas radical views seem to be closer to replacing the oppressors in leu of situational jealousy. It aims to divide whereas other forms of feminism bring these groups together and aim to produce something better. Within sports I personally see no positive addition of borderline reverse-gender mindsets regarding women’s sports as all it seems to inspire is division and exclusion all negative traits of humanity.

Intersectionality seems like a form of simplistic understanding for why racism/sexism met at an intersection however it blames systematic (built in) factors of the patriarchy while aligning peoples beliefs as potentially always being racist or sexist whereas those of the more marginalized groups are discriminated the most. It poses good points where people who are often the victims of hatred based crime/treatment is due to a various subsets of discriminatory factors but it leaves context out of scenarios isolating the mass of incidents as identical in value/fault. Intersectionality essential promotes the idea that all variables in society should be weighed when examining a person and the treatment they will likely endure as a result. Within sports this would work very well as the statistical view of people and access to sports and understanding/analyzing athletic value and potential is deeply tied to professional sports as a whole.