Sexism and Trolls Online [Videos]

We often have conversations in class about online behavior and how it might resemble or disrupt face-to-face behavior.  Sometimes it can be difficult to bring gender into the mix because students might feel that sexism is just one example of how mean people can be online.  However, this series of videos shows that women, particularly those in mail sphere, have particular harsh critics online. You can use this videos to discuss some of the reasons why that might be.

The first video shows men reading the mean tweets that were sent to female sportswriters.



If you feel ready to take this conversation to the next level, check out the sketch by Amy Schumer. It's a bit harsh but in the sketch, news reporters explain how making a "rape and kill" button on twitter, would be efficient.  This is clearly satire that shows the extent of the problem, but is probably best used with mature groups of students only:http://www.hulu.com/watch/936394

Sport & Racial Ideology [Video]

Racial ideologies are so embedded into everyday discussions, especially when it comes to sports. In this video, actors mock the way sportscasters use ideologies to discuss football players' strengths. I use the video to discuss the mind/body dualism that is so integrated with the way we talk about race.



You can pair this video with an interactive graphic that looks at actual NFL scouting data: http://avidsociologyinstruction.blogspot.com/2014/08/describing-black-and-white-athletes.html

Sports vs Academics [Video]

As a sociologist who studies sport, I'm often pushing students to view sport with a critical lens.  This usually puts us in conversation about how we value sports and how we devote time, money, and energy to sport because of those values.

 This video is especially useful for having that conversation with relation to how we value sports  versus how we regard academics.

Enjoy!

Football & Rape Culture [Video]

Amy Schumer is one of my favorite people in comedy right now. In this sketch, she uses satire to show the connections between playing football and rape culture.  I showed this video last week and the students found it humorous. More importantly, this really opened up our conversation on this topic.  In addition to the clear linkages between football and hyper masculinity,  the students also pointed out a number of other things:

• The players ask their coach a lot of questions.  This shows that boys and men aren't often taught what rape actually IS.  Most girls women have been taught how NOT to be victims, but boys and men don't discuss how NOT to be rapists.
• The coach's status and power are question when he tries to introduce new rules that don't line up with ideas about hegemonic masculinity. 
• The community plays a  role in upholding a certain way of thinking about football and football players.

Brutally Honest NFL Promo [Video]

Thanks to Funny or Die for putting together a video that sharply contrasts our the idealized notion of football versus the reality of scandals and issues that have plagued the NFL.

In many ways, this is just a more extreme, and honest, version of the regular promotions that show hard hits and advertise violence. I plan to use this video to discuss how ideologies are often undermined by evidence, yet still persist in our collective discourses.

Sports Migration [Interactive Map]

Sports Migration is a very interesting concept and useful for getting students to talk about global inequality, global capitalism, and the global economy.  Students may not realize how many athletes are migrants. What countries send players? What countries receive them?

There are many great examples of sports migration in the major professional leagues of baseball, basketball, and hockey but these pale in comparison to soccer.

Slate put together this cool interactive map - and it is great way to visualize what is happening with sport migration. You can select a certain country and then see if that country is sending players out or receiving them. You can also watch a time lapse video to see how the trend has changed over time. Have fun teaching globalization with soccer!

Interactive Soccer Migration Map

Check out this example map:

LINSANITY! Thinking about Race and Sports [Video]

As a sport researcher, I read a lot about Race and Sports but much of what I read is about African Americans. Athletes like Jeremy Lin introduced new and interesting questions about how we talk [and joke] about race.

Saturday Night Live brings up some of these interesting questions on this skit. The anchors feel very comfortable joking about Asians but are outraged about anti-black jokes.  Their satire is not too far off from some of the behavior we saw during Linsanity. This clip usually generates some laughs and some great discussions about why certain jokes become acceptable while others are marked as racist.

The clip is no longer available on Hulu, but you can find it here:
http://cms.springboardplatform.com/embed_iframe/803/video/443123/blso003/blacksportsonline.com/10/1/

Gender Ideology in Sport Media [Video]

When we talk about Gender Ideology and the Media, we often focus on the movies, television, and music videos; however, gender ideology is prevalent within the sport media.  I use this clip in my Sociology of Sports class to start a discussion about representations of women in the media but it would also work well in a non-Sport related class.

In the clip, the sexy Amy 'Schumerenka' is over matched by the more masculine-looking Bridget Everett. The commentators and fans pay more attention to Amy despite her inferior talent.


If you are looking for a reading to pair with this, check out  Silence, Sports Bras, and Wrestling Porn: Women in Televised Sports News and Highlights Shows by Michael Messner, Margaret Carlisle Duncan and Cheryl Cooky
 http://www.michaelmessner.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SilenceWrestlingporn.pdf

 

Gender, Sexuality, and Figure Skating [Video]

Saturday Night Live created this spoof, which made me laugh but more importantly helped me make a point about heteronormativity in my course.  In the US, figure skating is associated with femininity and is seen as a sport that only women and gay men participate in. SNL created a "Heterosexual Figure Skating Championship" in which 3 male skaters performed routines. Each man performs a comically bad routine that is made up of multiple 'masculine' behaviors. The underlying assumptions are that these are 'real men' and so they couldn't possibly be capable of the artistry and grace that the sport demands. You can use these assumptions to talk about the links between sex, sexuality, and gender.


Video Link Here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/588249

 If you want to pair this with a reading, check "The Frozen Closet", a great Newsweek article by Abigail Jones

Gender Testing of Athletes Activity [Interactive Graphic]

On this website, students can click through an exercise in "determining" an athlete's gender/sex.  This is a useful activity for helping students complicate their understandings of gender and sex.  It would also help begin a conversation about gender and sports.

The website states:
"Do you think that determining an individual's gender should be straightforward? Can you think of a single test or examination that can unambiguously identify a person's gender? What happens if various tests disagree?
"Try this interactive exploration that challenges you to determine whether an athlete is qualified to compete as a female. Along the way you may gain some understanding of the biology of sex and in particular how sex is determined in humans."

I assign this activity as homework and have students discuss in the next class how the activity illustrates the social construction of gender and sex categories.  In conjunction with this activity, I provide examples of the media coverage of athletes who have had to undergo this type of testing.  I also discuss the concept of “determining gender” from the article “Doing Gender, Determining Gender: Transgender People, Gender Panics, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System” by Westbrook and Schilt (2014).

Link to activity: http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/gender-testing-athletes

Sexuality, Deviance, and Sport [Videos]

When Michael Sam came out as the first gay NFL player, a series of great sociological discussion followed both inside and outside of the sport landscape.  Should Sam's homosexuality be considered deviant?  Will he be a distraction? And how does this compare to other types of deviance that NFL players are often associated with?

These humorous satirical videos might help you in your class discussions about this topic. Because there are multiple videos, I am using links instead of embedding the videos

How To Talk To Your Kids About Michael Sam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_MLi2wAfdM

Jon Stewart - Friday Night Rights: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/welua3/friday-night-rights

Colbert Report on Sam's Draft Day Kiss: http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/nnz78u/michael-sam-s-nfl-draft-kiss

Newcaster Dale Hansen on Celebrating Difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olc5C4SXAYM

*Newer Link * The Daily Show's Samantha Bee presents an interesting contradiction. Locker room culture often involves butt-slapping and penis jokes...yet many players express discomfort with a gay man in the lockeroom. http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/xkrp7t/sam-s-scrub

Medals Per Capita [Interactive Data]

When I teach the Sociology of Sport, I like to spend some time on global sport.  One thing that we always discuss is the relationship between a country's wealth, population, and success. What do these things have to do with each other?

Medals Per Capita is a great resource for this discussion.  You can use the list of the left to look at medals by population and GDP. You can look at just one Olympics or at many.




You could also easily use this as a discussion springboard in any lecture on Global Inequalities. Very cool site!

Are the Winter Olympics for the Rich? [Interactive Graphic]

This Washington Post Graphic helps students to visualize the relationship between a nation's income and the number of medals that they nation wins. I like to use this to get students talking about winners and losers in sports? Is the winner always the most talented? Or maybe just someone who had more training, better equipment, etc.

Are Winter Olympics For the Rich?

Describing Black and White Athletes

Deadpsin put together an interesting interactive feature that looked at how the media describe white and black NFL prospects.

Deadspin Word Analysis

While the sample size is a bit small, this exercise is still a great way to start a discussion on how the media often uses words like "hard work" and "leadership" to discuss white players while often using "natural athleticism" to talk about black players.

I posted two examples below. See if you can have your students think of more examples.

Female Athletes and the Media [Video]

We generally try to stick to shorter clips on this site, but I happened across this 60 minute film that I thought some would find useful > especially since it is available free on the web.

Media Coverage of Women in Sports

The film was produced by the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport,  and the University of Minnesota, and Twin Cities Public Television.

Gender in Olympic Sports [Interactive Graphic]

The Washington Post put together a neat interactive graphic that shows how Winter Olympic Sports have evolved over time.  The graphic does a nice job of visual showing the difference between men and women over time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/sports/2014-olympics/history/

If you click on each event, you can see a bit more detail. For example, when I clicked on Bobsled, I could see that the women's event was only added in 2002 and that women still are not allowed to compete in Four-Person sled competitions.

Use this interactive as a springboard to talk about differences between men's and women's sports.