{"id":4565,"date":"2013-11-21T11:27:19","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T16:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=4565"},"modified":"2013-11-22T09:52:19","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T14:52:19","slug":"gender-socialization-and-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2013\/11\/21\/gender-socialization-and-the-nfl\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender Socialization and the NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe others have picked up on this, but I’m just getting around to hearing, by way of Slate’s Hang Up and Listen<\/em> podcast<\/a>, Chicago Bears receiver Brandon Marshall* comment on the Richie Incognito bullying scandal. In a press conference, he sounded a bit like a sociologist as he commented on gender socialization<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cTake a little boy and a little girl. A little boy falls down and the first thing we say as parents is \u2018Get up, shake it off. You\u2019ll be OK. Don\u2019t cry.\u2019 A little girl falls down, what do we say? \u2018It\u2019s going to be OK.\u2019 We validate their feelings. So right there from that moment, we\u2019re teaching our men to mask their feelings, to not show their emotions. And it\u2019s that times 100 with football players. You can\u2019t show that you’re hurt, can\u2019t show any pain. So for a guy to come into the locker room and he shows a little vulnerability, that\u2019s a problem. That\u2019s what I mean by the culture of the NFL. And that\u2019s what we have to change. So what\u2019s going on in Miami goes on in every locker room. But it\u2019s time for us to start talking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"marshall\"
\nWhile his insight is unsurprising to most sociologists, it might be worth using in class alongside, say, Bill Pollack’s The Boy Code<\/em><\/a>. But I think there’s also a point to be made here about how gender inequality affects us all. Marshall — a professional athlete — embodies hegemonical masculinity and is at the tippy-top of a hierarchy that privileges men and masculine behavior. And, yet, his comment reveals the brutality of that system for even the supposed beneficiaries. <\/p>\n

*Despite his eloquence on this issue, Marshall is not necessarily an ideal role model of feminist conduct. He has had a number of run-ins with the law for assault and domestic violence. He was subsequently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and seems to be doing quite well with the treatment. As the Hang Up and Listen<\/em> hosts mention, one can hear a bit of the language of therapy in his statement, something more NFL players (and people in general) could benefit from. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe others have picked up on this, but I’m just getting around to hearing, by way of Slate’s Hang Up and Listen podcast, Chicago Bears receiver Brandon Marshall* comment on the Richie Incognito bullying scandal. In a press conference, he sounded a bit like a sociologist as he commented on gender socialization: \u201cTake a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4565"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4573,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions\/4573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}