Gender Socialization: Threatening the Lives of Female Athletes
By Lawrence Tuttle
23 November 2019
Mary Cain
was an Olympic-qualified runner at age seventeen. In 2013, she accomplished her
all-time dream of working for Nike’s Oregon Project, the world’s best track and
field team. Alberto Salazar—the head coach—was Cain’s idol and role model. He became
her personal trainer and she did everything within her power to follow his instructions
and make him proud. At the beginning of her training, Cain felt like she had
reached the climax of her career. After a short six years on the team, however,
this athletic prodigy faced devastating effects when forced to follow Salazar’s
increasingly strict body size requirements. In order to retain her standing on
the team, she was relentlessly pressured to get “thinner and thinner and thinner.”
After multiple years of this rigorous training, which was often based on a male
development timeline, her body reached critical condition, coming close to
developing osteoporosis and infertility.
After these debilitating consequences (and doping
charges held against Salazar), she realized that she had to publicize her
experiences with the team. Shortly after speaking out, the Oregon Project was
dissolved, and Nike underwent extensive investigations regarding the treatment
of all their athletes.
Cain’s abhorrent
experience is unfortunately quite common. Also referenced in the story was the experience
of Gracie Gold, an Olympic figure skater. Similar to Cain, her mental
health dropped to the point of suicide due to the inhumane size demands placed upon
her. Because she felt like her self-worth was attached to meeting these
expectations, she developed suicidal levels of depression. Fortunately, she
also spoke out before it was too late. These stories reflect a type of pressure
that permeates athletic sports and many facets of the public sphere: gender
socialization.
What is gender socialization?
The concept
of gender
socialization is when masculinity and femininity are defined under certain
terms with two key players: agents and targets. The agents are those actively
or passively informing society about what it means to be masculine or feminine.
Targets are the recipients of these definitions who are expected to conform to
them. In the case of Cain, Salazar and Nike were active agents deliberately
pushing her (the target) to get thinner and thinner to achieve their definition
of what a feminine athlete should look like. Another athlete, Olympic distance
runner Kara
Goucher, expressed that “after being cooked meager meals by an assistant
coach, she often had to eat more in the privacy of her condo room.” These
athletes did their best to conform to the expected body mass, but it was physically
unattainable. For Cain, this meant losing recognition from Salazar and her status
within the Oregon Project. These women exemplify how strict adherence to gender
socialization standards can be harmful to realize.
Standards
like these develop from more general gender stereotypes. From Cain and Gold’s
stories, one of these stereotypes for women is extreme thinness. The video Tough Guise
addresses the limiting set of stereotypes that males are socially compelled to conform
to or be ostracized. Characteristics include, but are not limited to, aggression,
intimidation, physicality, power, muscularity, and athleticism. These gender
constructs explain in part the rationale behind Salazar and Nike’s actions
toward their athletes.
What are “real” sex differences?
While some
of these gender stereotypes are created through agents of socialization, others
stem from actual differences between males and females, as explained in the
work of Wade
and Feree. “Real” differences are those that can be measured cross-culturally
and biologically. The number of “real” biological differences between men and
women are few, but they can have detrimental consequences if intentionally ignored.
In the example of Cain and Gold, “women and girls are being forced to meet
athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop.” The toxic implications
for women include decreased bone density, poor mental health, loss of menstrual
period, increased risk of osteoporosis, and even suicidality. This occurs
because Cain and other female athletes cannot physically fit this impractical mold
without serious health consequences. It is not just a matter of intense
training and dedicated effort; there are legitimate physical differences that
make standards like those set by Salazar impossible and destructive for ambitious
athletes.
Consequences
of ignoring “real” sex differences can result in experiences like those of Cain
and Gold. They push themselves to unnatural levels that are physically
unrealistic to meet and damage their bodies in doing so. Holding to such
expectations can be destructive for all athletes, and by extension, members of
society when it causes agents to disregard “real” sex differences.
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