# My Sociology of Sports Textbook
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 9, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234 "2015-02-09T16:36:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/41 "2015-02-11T02:51:49Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> Sure. You’re continuing on the attack because people like you (simple-minded, conservative reactionists) feel that bowing out of an argument or admitting your mistake is a sign of weakness. So you can’t just take perfectly good advice to just confession your error. Your only recourse is to act tougher, meaner, completely disproportionate to the original offense in an effort to get the other guy to back off.
>
> How would your god Jesus feel about you taking his name in vain? I don’t know if you’re religious, and now that you know I’m going to use it against you, you might deny religiosity. Don’t worry, I’m much too lazy to search your post history to see whether you’re religious or not, I’m just going to assume that you are. And with that, I’ve given you an opening to attack me. You sigh in relief, glad to be able to go on the offensive. Not knowing that’s what everyone expects you to do and how it looks. You don’t care, as long as you think it makes you look better, you will do it, you can’t help yourself.
>
> So going back to my original post, I merely wanted clarification. Was this contention backed up by evidence or not. Its not an unreasonable request, is it? If you’re smart, you’ll only reply to this paragraph, and you’ll do so nicely and without vitriol. But we all know you’re not. So have at it.
>
> Bonus: Sometimes, people look smarter and stronger by admitting they made a mistake. We all do it. I probably made one by antagonizing you. Not that I care about your feelings, I just really wanted to know the answer to my question.
Yogsosoth, why don’t you take a moments break from your worthless shitposting and think about just what it is you are asking for? You’re looking for a citation that proves the existence of a secret, millennia-old, intercontinental conspiracy to oppress women (apologies if those words are too big for you). Go fuck yourself.
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### Author:  [@The\_Mighty\_Boosh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mighty_Boosh)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/42 "2015-02-11T06:25:32Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#):
>
> You’re looking for a citation that proves the existence of a secret, millennia-old, intercontinental conspiracy to oppress women .
Isn’t he simply asking whether there was any evidence offered of the claim in the original text that some men use sports to shore up their own sense of masculinity? Seems like a reasonable thing to ask and it would be weird if the claim was based on nothing at all. Incidentally, I suspect the original writer meant to imply that such dynamics work at an ideological rather than a ‘secret’ level.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/43 "2015-02-11T12:51:15Z")
Meh.
“Issues in X” books are typically a compilation of short essays from different perspectives addressing popular debates or controversies in a subject. Usually you’d have essays addressing a given debate from both sides. These books are used to introduce a subject and provoke in-class discussion.
In other words, these are op-eds, not traditional textbooks. I agree that essay doesn’t seem very good, but I’m guessing the world’s great minds aren’t writing on this subject.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/44 "2015-02-11T15:13:27Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#):
>
> I am politically liberal, and I think you’re acting like a complete ass.
Ditto.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/45 "2015-02-11T16:23:40Z")
Ironic because sports are used as a means to suppress and oppress men. The men in sports are treated like farm animals put on parade for female sports reporters in the locker room while the male fans are induced to maintain a constant state of drunkenness. Female athletes get to wear pretty outfits and appear in a special issue of SI just for them. When will this wanton discrimination end?
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/46 "2015-02-11T17:56:23Z")
**Tripolar** speaks truth to power.
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### Author:  [@Tully\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tully_Mars)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/47 "2015-02-11T17:59:47Z")
Yeah, but he didn’t use the writing style that **Shodan** suggested in post #25, so I’m giving him a C-.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/48 "2015-02-11T23:58:16Z")
Pardon my lack of understanding, but if women are playing against women, or men are playing against men, where does gender oppression come in?
If an all-male team is beating an all-female team 100-40 in basketball, then yes, I could understand (“Men have the physical advantage”), but doesn’t women vs. women or men vs. men make it irrelevant?
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### Author:  [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/49 "2015-02-12T00:09:22Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Pardon my lack of understanding, but if women are playing against women, or men are playing against men, where does gender oppression come in?
>
> If an all-male team is beating an all-female team 100-40 in basketball, then yes, I could understand (“Men have the physical advantage”), but doesn’t women vs. women or men vs. men make it irrelevant?
It seems to me that the passage says men like aggressive sports because they celebrate the gender differences that allow them to oppress women, not that the sports themselves are oppressive.
It’d be like if the Nazis loved them some brick-oven pizza.
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### Author:  [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/50 "2015-02-12T00:31:11Z")
I’m going to go ahead and make the gigantic leap that the book’s thesis is a lot closer to “some aspects of sports culture unintentionally harm women” than “there’s a secret conspiracy of everyone who’s ever participated in a sport to oppress women.”
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### Author:  [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/51 "2015-02-12T05:22:57Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#):
>
> I’ve always wondered this. Why didn’t soccer catch on beyond school age kids?
His contention (I don’t have my materials available, so I can’t find the papers he gave us) was that soccer and baseball filled similar niches in England and the US in the mid 19th century as pastoral games. Working men needed an excuse for fresh air, camaraderie, exercise, nature, etc. Both required minimal equipment and could be played with large and small groups of people.
Had soccer spread to the US before the civil war, it would have likely become the diversion of choice for the army camps. But instead baseball did. Then soccer struggled for a long time because it’s niche in the sporting culture was filled.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2015, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/52 "2015-02-12T06:16:07Z")
> [@Taber](#):
>
> I’m going to go ahead and make the gigantic leap that the book’s thesis is a lot closer to “some aspects of sports culture unintentionally harm women” than “there’s a secret conspiracy of everyone who’s ever participated in a sport to oppress women.”
That is fine but it also a malicious and false claim. It is true that men’s sports dominate pure viewership at the professional level among both women and men but you also have to look at what it takes for the select athletes in question to get there. The best players that ever went to a particular high school in any sport may or may not get a scholarship to a Division I university. They will be force-fed a very light version of the standard curriculum while they are they and they may or may not graduate even then. If they are among the absolute best that has ever attended that particular school, they may or may not have a shot of making it into the NFL, NBA or NHL. If they do make it that far, the smart bet is that their career years will be measured in the very low single digits.
For all of that, they will likely pick up permanent physical injuries that will plague them for the rest of their life. Permanent American football brain injuries are a real crisis in the NFL right now and hockey injuries are also almost inevitable. I would call that more of serious male issue rather than a supposition of oppression of anyone other than those involved.
It boggles the mind how feminists, even male ones, can spin any possible example of exploitation as being an example of how men are oppressing women. That has nothing to do with it in this case. There is some real exploitation involved but sex or gender has nothing to do with it. It is just about athletes being exploited for something that hardly ever delivers.
Breaking news - some women are athletes too and the same thing applies to them. The most popular events in the Olympics are women’s figure skating and women’s gymnastics. My young daughter is a very talented gymnast that just won a huge regional tournament. I am proud but she claims that she wants to go to the Olympics in a few years. I put a damper on that quickly because female gymnasts are commonly exploited and I don’t won’t her to take up an identity too closely tied to that. There is no such thing as a professional gymnast after all.
The passage presented is sexist on its own because it presupposes many facts that are obviously false. Men don’t participate in sports because they want to oppress women and there are millions of female athletes in the U.S. alone. Are they secretly trying to oppress other women as well?
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### Author:  [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/53 "2015-02-12T15:50:02Z")
how do you misread a two sentence post that badly? My entire post was saying I don’t think the book was saying that sports are a secret plot to oppress women, so “aha are women athletes in on the secret plot to oppress women?” is a really bad gotcha.
I mean my bullshitese is a little bit rusty, but I think the linked passage is saying that men who think men are better than women like sports because most sports demonstrate men being better than women. I’m not convinced it’s right, but I don’t think it’s objectionable.
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/54 "2015-02-12T20:56:41Z")
I misread the title of the thread as _My **Scientology** of Sports Textbook_. After thinking about it for a minute I decided that I would audit a class like that.
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### Author:  [@The\_Mighty\_Boosh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mighty_Boosh)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/55 "2015-02-13T02:31:12Z")
> [@Taber](#):
>
> I mean my bullshitese is a little bit rusty, but I think the linked passage is saying that men who think men are better than women like sports because most sports demonstrate men being better than women. I’m not convinced it’s right, but I don’t think it’s objectionable.
Yep, that’s what I got. A fairly uncontroversial statement, expressed reasonably straightforwardly. You can’t win with discussions like this, though; people are too eager to show off their contempt for left-wing academic babble which for the most part exists only in their heads. Not very edifying to see on a board which prides itself on the intelligence of the membership, I have to say.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/56 "2015-02-13T03:26:17Z")
> [@The\_Mighty\_Boosh](#):
>
> Yep, that’s what I got. A fairly uncontroversial statement, expressed reasonably straightforwardly. You can’t win with discussions like this, though; people are too eager to show off their contempt for left-wing academic babble which for the most part exists only in their heads. Not very edifying to see on a board which prides itself on the intelligence of the membership, I have to say.
You are correct that you personally can’t win discussions like this but it has nothing to do with politics or ideals. You added no new ideas or thoughts of your own and your grammar is atrocious. I am thrilled to have you as a member of the other side. Welcome aboard soldier!
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### Author:  [@The\_Mighty\_Boosh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mighty_Boosh)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/57 "2015-02-13T08:34:40Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> You are correct that you personally can’t win discussions like this but it has nothing to do with politics or ideals. You added no new ideas or thoughts of your own and your grammar is atrocious. I am thrilled to have you as a member of the other side. Welcome aboard soldier!
Cheers. If it’s my side, ‘the people who can read’, versus your side, ‘the lunatic fantasists’, I have confidence in our eventual victory.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/58 "2015-02-13T15:03:10Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#):
>
> I misread the title of the thread as _My **Scientology** of Sports Textbook_. After thinking about it for a minute I decided that I would audit a class like that.
A friend’s sister just got her college diploma and posted a picture on Facebook, and I misread “Sociology” on it exactly the same way.
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### Author:  [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-sociology-of-sports-textbook/712234/59 "2015-02-13T15:32:02Z")
> [@LibrarySpy](#):
>
> The OP’s passage seems like complete, unadulterated bullshit. I cannot even fake a defense for it. WTF.
I just had to mop coffee off the monitor, which is housecleaning, which is totally oppressive against women!
Anyway, I agree with this statement. I missed the memo that sports oppresses women. Sports might \*annoy \*some women, but “oppress” seems to be a bit of an overstatement.
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