Short Reflection On The Sociology Of Sport

ED 1308 The Sociology of Sport

Jason Ryan

114461102

ED 1308 The Sociology of Sport

In this assignment on Sociology of sport I will be writing 3 short reflections on my chosen topics which are social theories, gender and disabilities. In these reflections I will be comparing the different types of social theories and I will be explaining what I think they mean in my opinion will then look in-depth into gender in sport and try to highlight problems I see in this topic and also I will look into women in sport as this gender seems to be forgotten about when it comes to sport For my final reflection I will be talking about sexuality. I will be discussing about how athletes find it hard to be open about their sexuality and why

Abby Wambach a female soccer player is the highest earning soccer player in the female game earning $190,000 a year (the richest) which is a lot of money but when you compare it to the men’s game where Ronaldo is earning 14.3 million a year (sporteology.com. the reason down to the huge game is due to the media and sponsorships. the media I feel do not give the women enough air time on the television. It is very rare you see a women’s sporting game on the television. Can you remember the last time you saw ladies soccer on the television. Due to the fact that there is poor media coverage I feel that the big sponsors feel that investing in their games would not be beneficial to their company. I personally believe that the main reason they don’t get the same media coverage and sponsorship deals as the men is become the public do not have the same interest in women’s sport then in men’s sports. Men’s sports create massive income with ticket sales and merchandise. You could say it is the public’s fault that women are perceived as a minority in

I have realised some of them overlap each other such as the functionalist and the critical theory where the only difference is that the critical theory looks at the bigger picture socially. Although there are strong points made about each theory you can also pick out some of the weaknesses that entail such as the feminist theory only focuses on gender where it is really a minority compare to race and ethnicity. I found my other two reflections very interesting. What I did find hard to do was get extracts from homosexual sports men in Ireland as they decided it is best to keep their sexual preference a secret the only easy to find extract was Donal Og Cusack’s and his brother Connor. What I liked doing about gender was I didn’t have to be bias towards the female athlete as there are examples such as tennis where I feel the sport actually favours the female athlete over the male. Another example which I should have mentioned is men cannot compete is synchronised swimming but women can. These reflections really opened my mind. I feel that I really learned a lot and enjoyed doing this assignment as it opened my side to different views on sport and social