Assignment Journal 2
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Liberty University *
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Arts Humanities
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Apr 3, 2024
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Assignment Journal 2
Describe the activities of a typical “play day.” How did play days differ from athletic competition?
A typical play day included multiple sports such as: basketball soccer, field hockey, volleyball, tennis, and even sometimes a few track and field events. Play days were different from athletic competitions by not having an emphasis on competition but participation. Plays days weren’t teams competing against other schools, it was teams playing against their own classmates. The creation of play day also came from seeing the corruptive programs in men’s athletic competitions. Women created play day to de-emphasize competitive sports for women; “Sports for all” (Davies, 2017). Davies (2017), states that the concepts of teamwork, training, practice, and the implementation of strategies were downgraded in favor of socializing and enhancing the individuality of the participants. Reading about play days, reminds me of recess or just playing a game of pick-up. Though play days were meant for less competition, in today’s play day or pick-
up games they are taken serious like an athletic competition. Even during times when we are younger and are at recess. Teams are created by picking one person at a time seeing who looks like they can play the best. Play days are about the competition still just not the win at any cost mentality that the original creators were trying to avoid.
Evaluate the changing views of womanhood and femininity as seen in the life of Mildred “Babe”
Didrikson Zaharias.
In the beginning of Mildred Didrikson’s career, when she started getting noticed by the media many people didn’t know how to act or respond to a female athlete who was skillful. Throughout
Didrikson’s life she was always criticized for her skill or look. When she was in high school, she excelled in multiple sports but there were kids, males, who challenged her and therefore led to fights. Didrikson was criticized for her physique, her use of language, and how she played. She was the complete opposite of what society thought I woman should look and act like. She was unmarried, self-supporting, and earning big money” (Davies, 2017). She was a star in multiple sports but hardly anybody wanted to talk about her skill. They were more focused on her sexual orientation or her physique. She was entered into an AAU meet as a one-person team placing high in every event she entered. But being a female, she was only allowed to advance to the Olympics in three events. She set records for two of those events but was penalized in another for using “an unladylike jumping style.” Which is ridiculous because to hear something as bizarre as that today would not be accepted in today’s competition. Didrikson faced backlash time after time in her career. She didn’t care for social norms or what the media said. I think the views on femininity and womanhood only had a slight change throughout Didrikson’s career. She had a lot more criticism from people in the beginning but after while around her death people could not deny her skill.
What were the “Smith Rules?” Why are they significant in helping us understand gender roles at the turn of the twentieth century?
The Smith Rules are a set of rules made for women’s basketball to be less rough. It was believed that if females were to play the five-person boy rules it would make them play rough and do unladylike things. The Smith Rules stated that players were restricted to separate areas of the court, physical contact was forbidden, a player could only dribble the ball once, defenders could not snatch the ball away, and a player could not guard a person who is shooting (Davies, 2017).
The Smith Rules was adopted by many schools with different variations of the rules. In Iowa high schools they developed a variation that had 3 girls play on offense and 3 on defense. This style of play became the most popular in the state, when state athletics dropped interscholastic competition for girls, they asked to keep this style of play (Davies, 2017). The Smith Rules is very significant to understanding gender roles because just the fact of there being a whole different set of rules for girls to play by just so they wouldn’t look unladylike or seem less than the standard is ridiculous. Even now the rules stay basically the same in most sports for both genders, but the level of roughness allowed is usually not tolerated as much in female play.
Reference:
Davies, R. O. (2017). Sports in American Life. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
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