In this assignment, I will explore the claim that ‘sport reflects and creates differences and inequalities’, using various sources of evidence available to me, in order to support this claim.

Sport plays upon the idea of the ‘embodied self’, a term used to describe the idea that individuals in society are “made up of physical bodies and individuals who are connected to the wider society, where the body that each person has is inextricably connected to who they are and how they are seen by others.” (John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 53)

Contrary to efforts otherwise, sport is not an equal playing field for all participants and our ability or lack thereof within sporting affects our body image, or our idea of our embodied self.

With this in mind, when we think about sport, we may be naturally inclined to think of what we see in the media, which tends to paint the picture of sport being: “A highly competitive field, which is marked by divisions between women and men and between able-bodied and disabled athletes, with a strong emphasis on the capacities of the athletic body, especially that of elite athletes” (John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 71)

In the past sport and more specifically sporting events were limited typically to just white males. Despite a gradual drive for further inclusiveness in professional sport such as the Olympics, particularly with the inclusion of women, racial minorities and disabled people, when you consider that sport itself is largely based on individual or team competitiveness, it is clear there are limitations to this inclusiveness.

Benedict Anderson (1984) explains this in his writing, saying that: “When people talk about ‘the team’, they say ‘we’ in a collective identity… the ‘imagined community’… of the nation or the team.” (Benedict Anderson (1984) cited in John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 71), so this shows that the very nature of a team breeds the idea of ‘us’ vs ‘them’ and this plays inextricably into a sense of difference and equality among groups and individuals in a society.

Continuing in this theme, there are also those who do not value sport and physical capital much or at all, which places them immediately in a category of difference between those who do; an idea which ties into the concept of the higher value placed on the rational mind over physicality, an idea that grew out of the enlightenment era of the seventeenth century that stressed the organising of social life around reason.

It was French philosopher, René Descartes that first coined this idea of a separation of mind and body, a theory often called ‘Cartesian dualism’ which “suggests that mind and body are distinct from each other, as expressed in ‘mind over matter’ where your rational mind can tell your body what to do and take control.” (John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 54)

Raia Prokhovnik (2007), a notable feminists said: ’women, other races and places, the working class, those with disabilities, animals, children, the mentally ill, and prisoners have all been classed as less than rational’ (Prokhovnik, 2007, p. 13).

However in more recent times, mind/body dualism has been challenged as a false dichotomy by subsequent social scientists and philosophers. One notable such thinker of this was Karl Marx.

“Rather than conscious decisions being what happens in the mind, mind, body and society are all connected parts of the same process, and the mind is not superior to the body.”

But despite these intellectual arguments to the contrary, the valuation of rational thought over physical capital is something that continues in contemporary society today, reflected in the inequalities of the class-systems in society: “… the mind/body split has often been used to distinguish… between the working classes with only their physical labour to sell and the middle and upper classes who can rely on their reason.“ (John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 54)

Sport and class are certainly intertwined. There are sports that appeal more to the upper-classes, such as polo, or golf which appeals more to the middle class or sports such as boxing and football which have been traditionally working-class sports.

“Pierre Bourdieu called this the ‘distinction of taste’, where social class is seen as defined by cultural as well as economic aspects of social life (Bourdieu, 1984). Bourdieu argued that there are three different sorts of capital in a capitalist economy – economic, cultural and social (he included symbolic capital as an additional factor that shapes class position)” (Bourdieu (1984) cited in John Clarke and Kath Woodward. “Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 57)

“Figure 2.1 which illustrates the drop in average life expectancy of one year for every second tube station that is further east from Westminster to Canning Town (cited in McCarthy and Synnott, 2012, p. 304) (Figure 2.1) cited in John Clarke and Kath Woodward. “Understanding Social Lives Part 2.

There is a decrease in life expectancy in areas of higher social deprivation.

Figure 2.1 “which illustrates the drop in average life expectancy of year for every second tube station that is further east from Westminster to Canning Town (cited in McCarthy and Synnott, 2012, p. 304, cited in John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 63)

Although it is clear sport creates divisions, opinion is also divided, on this: “You don't have to have a great body, you don't have to be very strong, and big, or anything like that, to participate in sport.” (The Open University, 2016)`

Data from the Active People Survey (APS) (Sport England, 2013b) shows that government drive to get 2 million more people into sporting activities was largely successful (Figure 2.2, APS data on participation in sport, October 2006–April 2013 (Source: Sport England, 2013c) cited in John Clarke and Kath Woodward, Understanding Social Lives Part 2, p. 64)


Gender

Not only does class play a part in inequalities in sport but so to does gender.

Women were only allowed to compete in the Olympics in 1900 (http://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/women.htm), but even despite this “Almost all sports are divided into men’s and women’s competitions.”

This could be seen as an overt display of sexism and division or merely a reflection of the basic biological differences between women and men and insurance of a fair game among those taking part.

Disability

Physical ability and disability also play a strong role in providing examples of difference and inequality

There are altheletes which do complete in both events, the competitors are largely separate, this shows difference and inequality due to bodily ability.

It is by no coincidence that until fairly recently people with physical disabilities were excluded from the Olympics, “whose fight for inclusion led to the establishment of the Paralympics in 1947.”

“Feminist scholar Donna Haraway (1991) uses the concept of a cyborg to describe the ways in which it becomes impossible to separate embodied people from the technological aids that have increasingly become a part of everyday life.”


In conclusion sport is a highly complex topic and displays wide-reaching examples of ways differences and inequalities are created and reflected in a society, be it through physical ability and disability, rationality vs physicality, classes or gender. To complicate things more, these examples are forever shifting as our society does and the lines are slowly becoming more blurred as technology moves forward, our societal ideals shift and the nature of sport as a pastime morphs in our collective minds.

References

Anita White, This Sporting Life [video], The Open University, 2016