Reflecting back on Derek’s lecture last week about social inequality was a real eye opener in so many different ways.
It made me consider my perspective about society and how they have formed opinions about different things that we didn’t even make ourselves – in particular women in sport and racism. Growing up in the 21st Century and trying to form your own opinions can sometimes seem impossible. Society has already formed an opinion on just about everything and it can be hard to think differently to this.
For example, women in sport. From the point of view of a girl who played football from the age of 7 right up to 17, I can say girls definitely get looked at in a different light than boys do. I played as the only girl in a boys team (school) and also in a full girls squad (club) and both experiences were very different. Every time I played for my school team, I noticed that boys on the opposing side wouldn’t treat me the same as the boys on my team – no one would tackle me properly. This used to really annoy me because as a defender I was always taught to tackle as hard yet safely as I could and I’m sure that was the same for everyone else – so why would boys on the opposition not tackle me? It wasn’t just the players who looked at me differently, it was the coaches too. They used to go up to my dad at the end of matches and say that it was good to see a girl playing amongst boys – why does this seem like a surprise to some people, surely it should be normal? As the years have gone on women in sport still don’t get the same recognition that males do and it is about time that this changed.
Racism has developed a lot over time. Segregation used to be a massive issue during the 20th Century but as time has moved on and different things have happened it is no where near as bad now as it was then. Everyone is now seen as equal and having the same human rights yet there is still some socially unequal views that people have. Racist comments and prejudice are still an issue today and it is about time that this changed.
