Women, sports, media and stereotypes

The media affects the mental picture of both women and men a lot. Sport is much dominated topic issue in the media and men’s participation there is rather bigger than women’s. Beliefs that have been established for a long time among public perception state that men are more active, trained and skilled in sports than women. If this is true, girls and women fail to use an opportunity to enjoy variety of positive benefits which is connected with sports activities such as higher self-esteem, better body and mental picture and lower position in anxiety and depression. In addition, sports have been generally defined and stated by masculine models according to biological differences between men and women. Gender stereotypes are likely keep in existence of gender roles related to sports images, which describes that women fit only to certain kinds of sports but the others are just for men.

The real example is boxing; according to latest news International Olympic Committee decided to add women’s boxing to the list of Olympic sports for the London Games in 2012. After first men’s boxing fight in the Olympics games that occurred more than a century before, now women will finally get the opportunity to being in this position as well. Three women’s boxing events will become involved in Olympic Games at London this year. These current events are divided into three categories: women’s Fly, women’s Middle and women’s Light. This boxing competition runs from July until August 2012.

In spite of the fact that boxing is highly regulated sport, but it helps to many women enjoy keeping fit with ability to control a mental activity which also can gain self-esteem, feel good about a body condition and decrease the level of depression. Therefore, stereotypes’ perception about gender roles related to sports images should not be asserted among population and most sports should not be taken as sports just for men or women. Most of them should be taken as competitive sports in which individual can gain personal best, achieve pride and being involved in global sport such as the Olympic games.

Let's read this web page that is related to this theme: http://www.london2012.com/news/articles/olympic-boxing-almost-here.html

Sources: 
http://www.mujerydeporte.org/documentos/docs/sms_summary_report.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/world_olympic_dreams/8834938.stm