Body Image

For this last blog I decided to change my topic to Body Image because I think thats what I want to write my research paper on and I'm very interested in the topic.

With a positive or healthy body image, a woman has a real perception of her size and shape, and she feels comfortable with her body. With a negative body image, a woman has a distorted perception of her shape and size, compares her body to others, and feels shame and anxiety about her body. Being unhappy with your body can affect how you think and feel about yourself as a person. A poor body image can lead to emotional distress, low self-esteem, dieting, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Developing a positive body image and a healthy mental attitude is crucial to a woman's happiness and wellness.

This article makes it seem so easy. It starts off asking "do you like what you see in the mirror?" I think this is what most women struggle so much with. Women are constantly looking in the mirror and thinking less of themselves. Also, women are the first to compare themselves to each other. I don't necessarily think this is bad or wrong, but it can lead to that negative body image. Body Image is such a broad topic and there is so much to learn about it. I mean, is it the media that affects women so much, is it because they are constantly comparing, it is the environment, there are so many factors to this!

http://www.4woman.gov/bodyImage/

Women are Now 39% of NCAA Athletes

I have read so many different articles and they all seem to have different statistics but are usually pretty close. Like this one, it says that 39% of all college athletes are female, well in the last article I read it was 54%. So i guess give or take a few, but the point is that the numbers of females in college athletics are increasing. The numbers have increased 16% over the last decade. The total number of female athletes grew from 88,698 in 1985-86 to 103,252 in 1996-97, while males dropped from 185,040 to 163,636. I thought this was interesting, while female athletics increases, males decreased...hmmm i wonder why. Males think this is because females are given a lot more opportunities and it is decreasing the male numbers. I also thought this stat was interesting since i play soccer. Women's soccer was the fastest growing sport on campus over the last decade, up 154% from 4,510 players in 1985-86 to 11,467 in 1996-97. That's more women playing college soccer than men playing college basketball, which dropped from 12,604 to 11,253 over the same period. The women's US national team won a world cup 8 years ago and this year made it to the finals. Women are doing outstanding in sports and they are slowly gaining equality and recognition. According to this article men make up more of the athletic population, but women are becoming a force.

http://search.rdsinc.com/texis/rds/suite2/+UDes7ktezxbtqA6KWxWK8_W+xFqnwcMwNFqnh1cc/full.html

Title IX's Flip Side

Under Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive government funds, "proportionality" in its athletics programs--that is, the percentage of women participating in varsity sports does not mirror the percentage of women in the student body. So the school plans to cut teams to make the numbers work. So, there is a down fall to title IX after all. In the rush to achieve equality between men and women in school-sponsored sports, Title IX, a law intended to expand opportunity for women in the classroom and on the playing field, is now being used to restrict opportunity for both men and women. There have been many lawsuits against this. The article mentioned one, when a member of the women's club softball team  went to the U.S. Department of Education and charged the school with discrimination for failing to give the team university-funded varsity status. This school has not yet solved this problem yet. Outcomes like this were not suppose to happen when title IX was founded. It was a law strictly prohibiting sports discrimination. There only seems to be one way out of this and that is that men lose to the University and women athletics gain from this. This could be a good and bad thing. It could potentially  cause a lot more problems or possibly solve everything, what do you all think?

http://search.rdsinc.com/texis/rds/suite2/+UDes7ktezxbtqA6KWxWK8_W+xFqnwcMwNFqnh1cc/full.html

Women In Sports

The story "Women In Sport" basically summarizes all my blogs into one. It mentioned pretty much everything I have talked about. It mentions: Title IX, lesbian and bisexual players and coaches, famous athletes and funding for female athletics or should I say the lack of. This story mentioned that 54% of college athletes are females. I guess I didn't realize this but thats awesome. Over half the athletic population within colleges are females. And this all relates back to the topic of women's right and women's equality. I think having women over-dominate the athletic population will help gain their equality within sports. Women certainly deserve it!

Sticking Up For Yourself

My posts this week are really random. I apologize for that but i am running out of things to write for my topic and i thought women's healthcare was really interesting this week. But this article happens to go along with my topic.

This article is about a women's volleyball team who entered to play in a tournament but found out they had to wear bikinis and refused so they withdrew from the tournament. It was an Indian volleyball team. Western countries see nothing wrong in wearing bikini's because they are used to it and its the "norm". I feel for this Indian team though. I mean if im not comfortable in something or doing something im not going to do it. So im glad they stuck up for themselves. And what makes this article even better is that the IVA  allowed the Indian team to wears shorts and a t-shirt, so they could and felt comfortable participating in this tournament.

http://search.rdsinc.com/texis/rds/suite2/+8heCB0nezxbtqA6KWWnX6nW+xFqnwcMwNFqnh1cc/full.html

Birth Control

This article is about birth control. The proportion of pregnancies in the United States that are unintended is 49%, and among low-income women, this proportion is even higher-62% among those with incomes below the federal poverty level. This goes right along with the readings this week. In one article a law was passed in 2005 that made it so companies raised their birth control prices. I think this is totally wrong. I mean the percentages are just too high to increase the cost of birth control, also this is kind of going against the whole"supporting women's healthcare rights. I mean because if they are raising the prices (especially with most the percentage of females with a low-income being so high) so the pregnancy rate is obviously going to increase. What do you all think? Do you think this law that was passed is good?

http://search.rdsinc.com/texis/rds/suite2/+cDeir0nezxbtqA6KWWnX6nW+xFqnwcMwNFqnh1cc/full.html

Abortion

I thought this weeks readings were very interesting, so i wanted to read a little more on abortion. This article was for pro-choice which i also agree with. It said that 52% of people felt that abortion should be an individual choice. So, its a little over half, but it could go either way. I mean there are so many constraints to this, which is some of the reason why people are iffy either way. What do you all think about abortion and do you think this percentage in accurate?

http://search.rdsinc.com/texis/rds/suite2/+JDeBx0nezxbtqA6KWWnX6nW+xFqnwcMwNFqnh1cc/full.html