Last week I wrote about Katie Sowers who is the first women coach in the NFL. Well making headlines this week is Rachel Balkovec, who is the first female hitting coach to be a part of the MLB.
Now let's talk a little about stereotypes that come with women and baseball. When you think about women and baseball most people automatically think oh they have their own sport softball. Most people think that because from a young age children are told boys play baseball and girls play softball. This has changed more recently with girls playing in the little league world series. It has always been ok for men to play softball, especially slow pitch softball or recreation league softball. But otherwise, men always coached and played baseball and men and women coached and played softball. But the main point here is that men can play and coach both baseball and softball and women can only play and coach softball and not baseball. Well, things are changing for the better.
When watching the MLB you do not see many women unless the cameraman pans to a player's family or the owner's family similar to the NFL. Or a bat girl or sideline reporter is a woman. MLB is a bit different than the NFL because they do not have cheerleaders so women are not being portrayed as a "sex" image. In the MLB women are very rarely present. This is now going to be changing with the fact that the New York Yankees have hired their first full-time female hitting coach, Rachel Balkovec. Now, Rachel says it was not easy for her to get this position. She has said that she changed her resume to be a gender-neutral resume after teams would not hire her because she was a woman. This just goes to show how so many people profile people off of their gender and not their ability to perform.
Now let's talk a little about stereotypes that come with women and baseball. When you think about women and baseball most people automatically think oh they have their own sport softball. Most people think that because from a young age children are told boys play baseball and girls play softball. This has changed more recently with girls playing in the little league world series. It has always been ok for men to play softball, especially slow pitch softball or recreation league softball. But otherwise, men always coached and played baseball and men and women coached and played softball. But the main point here is that men can play and coach both baseball and softball and women can only play and coach softball and not baseball. Well, things are changing for the better.
When watching the MLB you do not see many women unless the cameraman pans to a player's family or the owner's family similar to the NFL. Or a bat girl or sideline reporter is a woman. MLB is a bit different than the NFL because they do not have cheerleaders so women are not being portrayed as a "sex" image. In the MLB women are very rarely present. This is now going to be changing with the fact that the New York Yankees have hired their first full-time female hitting coach, Rachel Balkovec. Now, Rachel says it was not easy for her to get this position. She has said that she changed her resume to be a gender-neutral resume after teams would not hire her because she was a woman. This just goes to show how so many people profile people off of their gender and not their ability to perform.
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