Playing with the Boys
by Eileen McDonagh, Laura Pappano
ISBN-10: 0195386779
ISBN-13: 9780195386776
$26.99
Book Specs
Binding
Trade Paper
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Published on
Jul 10, 2009
Edition
1st Edition
Dimensions
9.10x6.00x1.00 Inches
Weight
1.26 Pounds
About the Book
Athletic contests help define what we mean in America by "success." By keeping women from "playing with the boys" on the false assumption that they are inherently inferior, society relegates them to second-class citizens. In this forcefully argued book, Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano showin vivid detail how women have been unfairly excluded from participating in sports on an equal footing with men. Using dozens of powerful examples - girls and women breaking through in football, ice hockey, wrestling, and baseball, to name just a few - the authors show that sex differences are notsufficient to warrant exclusion in most sports, that success entails more than brute strength, and that sex segregation in sports does not simply reflect sex differences, but actively constructs and reinforces stereotypes about sex differences. For instance, women's bodies give them a physiologicaladvantage in endurance sports, yet many Olympic events have shorter races for women than men, thereby camouflaging rather than revealing women's strengths.