Female’s are Sport Fans too.
The two articles that I chose to discuss this week were, ‘The Plight of the Female Sports Fan’ by Alyssa Rosenberg & ‘As a Female NFL Fan, I Want a Better Stadium Experience—Not a Pink Jersey’ by Shawnee Barton. Both of these articles had a similar main point that was being pushed across. This main point was summed around creating a better sporting environment for female fans including or excluding families. Now when Rosenberg talked in her article she described how as a female fan she just didn’t feel comfortable to be a sports fan. Rosenberg gives examples of how football players have sexual assaults and behavior against them pertaining to women. Alyssa is even a big sports fan already, so things like this are what make her “queasy to be a women and a sports fan.”(Rosenberg) She also talks on how “during Jets games, where male fans try to harass women into taking off their tops” (Rosenberg) which really doesn’t make her experience any better.
Now in the other article Barton speaks on how the separation between male fans and female fans is quite different and how it’s unsafe for females to bring their children to games. An example of how there’s a separation between men and females, Barton gave the example of how “It’s difficult to imagine a rule forcing men to empty the contents of their wallets into a plastic bag, yet purse-carrying women now must publicize their personal items at the stadium entrance, maxi-pads and all.”(Barton) This is a problem that is still ongoing today. Now the other point Barton touches on how females don’t feel comfortable bringing children to games because of the violence that can happen at games. The example she gives of this is how “At my last game, a 20-something guy standing directly in front of me in line beat two older men to a point in which an ambulance was called.”(Barton) She goes on to further say that the altercation all began because of the position in the beer line. These are examples of how small events can really influence how female sports fans feel about attending these events.
Now when looking at both authors point one can see the small connection between the underlying reason that females are under looked when attending sporting events. When reading both of these articles the topics that the authors talked about, both were two different problems that dealt female sport fans. What related these two articles is that each author, who is a sport fan, both experienced different examples of how women are treated & looked at during sport events. I think that both authors would agree and find that the evidence behind how males treat females & how females are looked at during sporting events are a real problem. I feel that they would agree on this solely because they both are female fans that both have experienced bad experiences in sporting stadiums; either dealing with male fan disrespect and/or bad experiences with families resulting from male fans. If both authors were to examine each other’s evidence of how females are treated during sporting events, they probably both would be able to relate very closely to exactly what they experienced in their article. I feel that this would be possible specifically because both authors are females and have been to more than one sporting event before, so they probably will have a list of experiences they have dealt with before.
Works Cited:
Rosenberg, Alyssa. "The Plight of the Female Sports Fan."
The Atlantic. 1 Feb. 2011. Web. 9 Feb. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/02/the-plight-of-the-female-sports-fan/70592/>.
Barton, Shawnee. "As a Female NFL Fan, I Want a Better Stadium Experience—Not a Pink Jersey."
The Atlantic. 25 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 Feb. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/09/as-a-female-nfl-fan-i-want-a-better-stadium-experience-not-a-pi