Harassment and abuse are considered breaches of human rights and occur in all countries. According to Encyclopedia of Psychology, sexual abuse is unwanted sexual activity with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims who are not able to give consent. Most of victims and perpetrators know each other. In sport, women athletes are more frequent victims of harassment and abuse than men athletes. Many women athletes drop out of sport rather than continue being subjected to the constant harassment and abuse. They endure the sexual attention of their male coaches or peers because of fear, desire for athletic reward, low self-esteem and ignorance of who to turn to for help. Typically, abused athletes keep quiet because they fear that they will be accused of consenting or just make up a story. Recent studies by Women Sport International indicate that sexual harassment and abuse is just as much a problem in sport as it is elsewhere in society. Many sports organisations do not have adequate mechanisms in place to help protect frightened athletes and to exclude harassers and abusers. . It is not true when some people think that if the victim did not resist it does not count as abuse. This thought totally wrong and hurtful because it will makes the victims difficult to speak out and more likely to blame themselves. The examples of sexual abuse are rough sexual activity, rape and forcible sodomy either oral or anal sex. Sexual harassment may be verbal, non
Athlete A Sophia Condilenios; March 10th 2023 Summary Athlete A is a documentary based on Team USA’s women’s gymnastics team, and how hundreds of young female athletes went through trauma and abuse from the coaching staff. Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon to hear that young athletes undergo many forms of abuse such as sexual, verbal, and physical. Often times on the team USA gymnastics team coaches use their power and authority to manipulate and control their athletes. This abuse clearly impacted the mental and physical health of these young female athletes. Larry Nassar, team USA’s gymnastics doctor was believed to be a very lovely and generous man and the nicest member of the coaching staff.
CNN) --Running back Ray Rice was released by the Baltimore Ravens and suspended indefinitely by the NFL on Monday, the same day a shocking video surfaced showing the NFL star knocking out his future wife with a punch in February. Martin, Jill, and Steve Almasy. " Ray Rice terminated by team, suspended by NFL after new violent video." (2014).
Today, we live in a world where media professional athletes receive an incredible amount of attention from the media; much more attention than these athletes would like. No matter where they are, on the field or off the field, every action an athlete makes is being recorded. Most athletes can’t deal with the pressure. There are daily reports of athletes involved in murder, stealing, drug use, rape, domestic violence and many others. These types of reports seem to dominate the news.
21 percent of athletes say they were at one point pressured to play with an injury Aleshire, 2003). This could come back to hurt a coach, they could possibly get sued if the injury were to get worse, or they could suffer morally from this as well. 17.5 percent of athletes said they have been hit, kicked, or slapped by a coach throughout their lifetime in the sport (Aleshire, 2003). Eight percent said that they have been called names with sexual connotations and three percent said they had been sexually abused (Aleshire, 2003). As a youth sports coach, abuse is not okay.
There is a huge issue with domestic violence in the National Football league. It is the NFL’s number one off the field issue, as domestic violence keeps occurring in the player’s lives. Football players are abusing their kids, wives, and girlfriends every day and are going on to play in an NFL game where they are being cheered on instead of punished. Domestic violence has been going on for years, but just now has become more of a problem that it
Sexism in sports is a continuing problem that our women athletes have to deal with every
Do Professional Sports Have a Negative Effect On Human Rights? On the surface sports is a wonderful thing; it offers people a chance to realize their dream of becoming a professional athlete as well as relish in the money and fame that follows, it also offers an escape wh ere people can relax and enjoy the spectacle that is sports. However underneath the glitz and glamour there is a dark side to professional sports that people do not often get to see. In the world of professional sports human rights are neglected.
Although over time gender discrimination has grown progressively over the years, one place that gender inequality is not fully present is in the sports world. Gender inequality in sports has been an issue in the industry for centuries. For years and years women faced the issues of lower pay, not as much publicity and not being appreciated as a female athlete. Clearly, even in this prevalent era of alleged equality and impartiality, most sports still remains as a male dominion, as there still is an unnoticed barrier between sport and woman. Through this analysis, I wanted to investigate some of the initial causes for the above circumstances.
Racism is a part of American history that can never be forgotten; a dark past that shows the constant mistreatment of African-Americans. Although African-Americans were freed from slavery in the 1860’s, discrimination continues to be seen today. Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one 's own race is superior. The white supremacy woven into mainstream American culture led to the continued widespread exclusion of African-Americans.
There's still discrimination because men love to show off how big they are or how much they can lift, making women feel like they are not good enough to be on the team. Even though women's sports have grown over the past decades, women’s sporting events have not grown more popular, media coverage of female athletes is not up to date. Three decades later they finally realize that women sporting channels are harder to find, and the presens on female athletes on tv are low, lower than they were back in the day. LA local networks affiliates dedicated about five percent of their coverage to women's sports in 1989, in 2014 the percentage had dropped 3.2 percent and because they took more time to focus on the women sports it was better then than it is now. Even though the participation of girl sports has increased, the commercials and highlight shows have made the girls look weak and the people interested in wanting to come and watch them play.
Back in 2016 Colin Kaepernick quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, controversially protested by taking a knee during the national anthem at a preseason game. This resulted in, a major amount resentment from fans, some even going as far as to burn his jerseys. Is one small act in protest to racism had a large effect leading many other athletes to contribute their support for the cause by kneeing as well. I personally believe, that these athletes are well within their rights. According to the first amendment people have the right to “peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”.
Women receive less recognition than men and are classified as weak. Women too are called “tomboy” for joining a stereotypical male’s sport or for joining any sport in general. With that said, it also prevents people from discovering their true passion for the fear of society’s perception. Since gender discrimination in sports foes not give men and women equal rights and opportunities, promoting sports without gender divisions will lessen this. Gender discrimination in sports is the discrimination which is based on one’s ability i athletics on their gender.
People don’t have enough knowledge to know that no one should have the right to sexually harass anyone. Even though one person have been educated to never sexually abuse anyone, they still don’t stop and think about all the consequences they will have and the self-blame, depression the victim will have to bear on their shoulders. There are 3 steps to stop sexual violence upon one another, 1. Think before committing an act of sexual violence, put an end to sexual assault and sexual abuse. 2.
However, hardly ever we hear about people that have been abused verbally although the effects are almost they same as if they have been raped. Verbal abuse is a way for people to barely leave any marks of destruction. Words do not cause bruises or any physical harm as Jarmila Milder explains “verbal abuse is often neglected because it hurts psychologically and emotionally rather than physically and thus remains ‘invisible’” (108, 2005). A definition of verbal abuse is hard to find as many different factors have to be included: gender, age, whether it happens at school or at work, ….These are all factors that have to be included when analyzing language of verbal abuse. Miriam Eliasson wrote her thesis paper on verbal abuse and summarizes verbal abuse as “Verbal abuse includes name-calling, teasing, ridicule, taunts, insults and threats” (11, 2013).
In the United States of America, societal deviance changes nearly on a daily basis. Depending on the pop culture of the day, deviance is modified to make societal heroes like celebrities, political figures, and sport players look less like deviants and more like role models to the public. The change in what is considered “normal” is customarily because of society in general. By using a reference group of people (i.e. celebrities) non-celebrity people tend to identify with those who are famous. Then when that role model does something terrible, like Justin Bieber urinating in a mop bucket in a restaurant, the public becomes desensitized to this behavior as abnormal, and thus aiding to the change in social deviances.