Ellis Cashmore Professor of Culture, Media and Sport at Staffordshire University's School of Health challenged us with the question: Is Sport becoming Emasculated? Ellis Cashmore - professor of culture, media and sport at Staffordshire University. 'Sport has been neutered, gelded, spayed, sterilized and de-sexed.' 'Over the past ten years, the once-bastion of machismo has been emasculated. It is now androgynous - partly male and partly female.' 'No bad thing', says Cashmore, 'purpose of sport as we know it was to provide somewhere men could validate their masculinity' Today's sports stars operate in an 'ornamental culture' - they are admired as much for how they look as how they perform: Been absorbed into the entertainments industry Women have come to the fore. Men's response - play women at their own game. So - footballers modelling designer's clothes, or advertising men's grooming aids After the closing of the Western frontier in 1890, there was no place left for American men to transform themselves into the stalwarts who would keep democracy alive and lead the country to global greatness. Sports - promoted as the crucible of American manhood... - manly virtues of self-discipline, responsibility, altruism and dedication... Sport - the "new frontier" ? Q: how did women fit into sports? A: not comfortably! early 1900s some doctors advocated exercise therapy rarely made connection between exercise therapy and women's full sporting participa-tion Thoughts: too much activity in sports of a masculine character causes the female body to become more like that of a man. Not only was a woman's body regarded as too weak and liable to serious hormonal dys-function if she went into sports... "but the competitive mentality was antithetical to her true nature... [women have an] "innate tendency to shun competition" In the 1970s: came legal abortion; birth control; sex discrimination laws; The Female Eunuch; Billie Jean King [Women began to] exhibit the same killer instincts that we thought were exclusive to men," lipsyte. In the early 1980s... The 'appropriateness' of the type of sport continues to reflect the tenets of the Victorian ideal of femininity: Categorically unacceptable: combat sports, some field events, and … body contact, direct ap-plication of force to a heavy object, and face-to-face opposition where body contact may occur Generally not acceptable: most field events, sprints, and long jump; these strength-related events … only for "minority groups" Generally acceptable: projection of the body through space in aesthetically pleasing pat-terns or the use of a light implement; no body contact e.g. swimming, gymnastics, figure skating, tennis The truth - the brains of the two sexes are organized in different ways, and it is this difference which gives rise to the differences in ability... For boys there should at least be more active and practical learning; more action and stress; a firmer structure and more competitive (virile) tests Symbolically, Beckham's relationship with Victoria Adams … consummates the relationship between sport - football in particular - and the popular music and entertainment industries... since late nineteenth century fears: fear that culture was becoming "feminized." Overtly aggressive, dominant and emotionally repressed behavior was derided, if not stigmatized, reducing men to a "confused, dysfunctional and insecure state" Ornamental Culture... calls for less doing and more showing. Men were once doers: those who were honored were astronauts, military heroes, even breadwinners. Now, "we are surrounded by a culture that encourages people to play almost no functional roles, only decorative or consumer ones"