Doing Gender

     As Tibbals discusses in her article, the act of “doing gender” occurs when “gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of society is hostage to its preproduction.” As an athlete throughout my entire life I am forced to think about how the implications from being an athlete in a male dominant sport affect women. Are women that play basketball, hockey, tennis or any other sport which is known for predominantly being a male sport successfully resisting being a hostage to gender reproduction? I recently read sociology of sport article by Michael Messner and his feminist approach toward the subject of doing gender can help teach us how to forget about any sense  of “doing gender” regarding females involved in predominantly male occupied sports. Messner uses what he calls a social justice model to explain a trend in sports he hopes is soon to occur. This model calls for social activist organizations to stress the significance of an altered gender ideology to league officials and owners in order for change to occur. Only once a change has transpired within the center - high-status and in-group members - of the institution of sport will a cultural change in values, beliefs, and media imagery begin to arise. Like Messner, I believe through this model women will eventually receive sex equity in sports by fighting the oppression and ghettoization which female athletes encounter. Because I consider myself a feminist I see the restraints reproduced through doing gender. This social justice model has the ability to fully allow women of all ages to free themselves from the consequences of doing gender in an unconventional sense. Through the social justice model, women in sports will not have to worry about “doing the wrong gender.”