When you think of the word position and sports you probably think about a pitcher, goalkeeper, or a quarterback. Many women and men play other positions off the field as well but particularly women athletes that are attractive play a different position than ones that are classified as "less attractive" by whoever classifies them. Let's take Alex Morgan, for example, she is a phenomenal soccer player who plays for the US women's national team. You probably have seen her face on many promotional ads as well as other brands outside of soccer brands not because she is the best female soccer player some might argue there are better ones but because she is "the most attractive". Most companies running ads targeted toward people who are fans of sports pick the most attractive women to be on their ads because they know men like to look at attractive women so then it makes them more likely to buy the product they are advertising. This happens with women athletes across all women's sports. More recently sports illustrated has put the "chubbier" athletes into their body issue to promote body positivity and I think is fantastic and all ads should include women with all body types. This is especially important for women athletes who are in ads that younger women see because no one should be ashamed of their body and only seeing attractive and fit women is not beneficial to young women.
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...
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