Women, Sport, and Film Course

Movies can provide a snapshot of those issues and in Remember the Titans, a true story has been used to portray sport as 'an even playing field' and a place where the common goal of pursuing victory and what it will take to achieve victory, eventually trumps the racial tensions.

What makes sport an easy vehicle to shed animosities and what other vehicles are there on College campuses to "bring people together" in dialogue and deed. What are the vehicles we can use on our campus to bridge cultural, racial, ethnic, orientation divides, when they exist?

I think that any time a woman displays 'masculine' traits (physical ability, basic self-confidence, assertiveness), there are going to be some who question her sexuality. On the other hand, even if it doesn't happen with most sports, some men do get questioned about their sexuality. I mean, has anyone ever watched wrestling (the kind that happens in high school, not the WWF type thing) and not wondered?

But, yeah, women get questioned more than men. I think that's probably because it's more obvious when a woman is 'intruding' on male dominated areas, like sports of business or law enforcement. It's more acceptable for men to be involved in female dominated areas, especially if they're very good at it. For instance, people might question if a man just likes to cook in general, but if he is an incredible cook (especially of 'man food'), then no one really questions it. On the other hand, there's really no way for a man to justify having a huge interest in clothing. People are probably just going to assume he's gay, even if he's a really great designer.

Music is akin to sport in this way...if the person plays an instrument or sings well, then they are respected for that and then as people. Basically, I think that any fine art will do this, because it is based on ability and respecting people for their abilities.

When you're on a team with someone, you have to play with them or you'll hurt your entire team. You're in close contact with other people and it's really obvious if people don't get along. Communication is really important on the field. Also there is a degree of equality on the team; everyone's playing toward the same goal and on equal footing. Sports games create a competitive and aggressive setting, but (usually) remove any hostile activity. The best man/woman wins.

On the campus, there are clubs, teams and meetings all the time. I know many clubs hold debates, forums and panels. I think something as simple as random room assignment as a freshman helps, too. During customs week, we did a lot of stuff to get to know other freshman.

I think there are a lot of other group related activities which can bring people together. The movie focused in on the marching band and cheerleaders as integrated a few times. Anytime there is a common goal, a group brings people together. I think maybe sports are perhaps more useful because it invokes school spirit and a degree of contact you might not see with the other groups on campus, as demonstrated by the locker room scenes in the movie. There is a level of closeness required in sports that can be worked around in other groups.

I think diversity groups are a great idea for campuses, and customs week dealt with a lot of diversity issues. It's good to get people talking, and I feel we do that on campus through groups.

I think when you're on a sports team of any kind, qualities like teamwork, helping and supporting each other and community are emphasized in order to come together as a team, be successful and win. Remember that corny saying, 'there's no i in team'? well its kinda true, because in order to come together as a group people need to focus less on their individual needs and desires and more on what is good for the group. This usually includes sacrifice and hard work.
Discussions about diversity on campus work kind of in the same way. They allow us to step into other people's shoes and take a look at what 'the other' person goes through. They allow us to listen to other peoples' perspectives and share our own. These discussions, like team sports, are an opportunity to focus more on what we have in common rather than how we are different. In this way, cultural, racial, ethnic, and orientation gaps can start to be bridged and understood better.

I think that some of the most important dialogues occur naturally. Again, I feel that there's something forced about a dialogue that is scheduled. Not to say that the dialogues that go on on campus aren't productive, they are a good gateway to get people thinking about the issues. And the fact that they go on at all is a reminder to people that the issues that the dialogues address exist. So perhaps dialogues occur in stages, organized and sporadic.

For me, I prefer the campus center.

I think the sheer physicality of sport makes it an easy vehicle to bond over. It helps people realise that underneath racial, cultural, ethnic and other dividers, we are just humans. If we are punched, we'll all curl up moaning and we're also capable of similar feats of endurance (given, of course, a similarity of physique). It doesnt matter what colour one's skin is, for example, if all other factors are the same.

The easiest way to bridge gaps is probably to talk about them. Once you talk openly to the "Other", it becomes obvious that they are not so different from you after all. And even if they are, you start to appreciate them for their differences as much as for their similarity to you. This is why the Diversity Workshops we have on campus, though not the most popular event, is an important step forward.

I think that our dorms are themselves the best example of environments that encourage and appreciate diversity. Take my own hall as an example - we have students from all over the US as well as two international students. This means that not only do I get to feast on Lebanese sweets, I also learnt the difference between Red Vines and Twizzlers (the former are more popular on the West Coast, the latter on the East, I'm told!). If that isn't the best example of a supportive environment, what is?

There is a lot of racial and ethnic diversity on this campus but I do not feel that it is an issue that students focus on as much as they should. Students should be more willing to participate in diversity workshops and lectures, and reach out to meet people who they consider to be "different" from themselves. Since racial and ethnic topics are often complicated by tension and animosity, I do not think that one forum will uniquely provide an adequate space to discuss these issues. However, sports teams, academic and social clubs, and even the classroom can provide welcome opportunities for such dialogues.

I have to agree with Jes on this one. We have a diverse campus, which is definitely a plus, but many of the students are so apathetic that discussions on our differences suffer from a lack of attendance. Additionally I feel that, for the most part, students are very vocal in class on issues of academic interest but shy away from divulging their true feelings on highly controversial social issues such as differences in race and ethnicity. Important and enlightening discussions go unexplored when people are polite to a fault.

I hope hell week is starting well for everyone. I think there are some great comments floating around right now, and I'd just like to mention one problem I've been having trying to reconcile some of them with women's sports. I think it's true in the movie, and many team situations, that prejudices can be overcome and the team united through common goals. The teams is integrated, and so they learn to work together because they have to. I wonder what this means for women's sports, since women's sports are separate from men's, and therefore men and women never have to learn to work together or depend on one another like they did in the movie. In my own gym classes, the boy's would play basketball games while the girl's were put in the back gym to practice dribbling (even girls already on a basketball team), and the boy's played football while the girls played catch with it across the field. I'm not suggesting teams should be integrated, and I'm not supporting separation, I'm just wondering what this says and what further roadblocks it represents to achieving the sort of social victory apparent within the movie.

I guess something that's overlooked is the very classrooms we learn in. For example, I was in a CSem called, "Memory Matters," and we looked at texts about the Holocaust, American slavery and the acts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This seems to be a reoccurring theme in Bryn Mawr classrooms. Our teachers encourage us to not just consider local or familiar events, but look at historical events that have things in common, but occurred in totally different parts of the world. We try to examine them from the point of view of many different people and investigate what went on.

I know Bryn Mawr offers a lot of seminars and panels and such (I get the activities emails), but I know I don't go to a lot of them. I wish sometimes we'd get different advertisement about these events. How many times have I erased an email without looking at it because I got 20 others in just the past hour? I know this is something I should avoid doing, but it'd be nice if these special events were advertised in different ways. Bryn Mawr does make the effort to bring these to our school.

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