Sport

Saturday, September 11 2009. it is not Osama and the Twins Towers again it is Serena Williams at the US Open semi-finals against Kim Clijsters. But it was terror all the same. She faulted during a serve, the judge penalized her and the sensational tennis queen went on riot, literally. Wagging her racket, she charged at the judge and ranted Im going to shove this ball down your f------ throat (Associated Press 2009). The devils in her had earlier been enraged when she broke her racket after losing the opening set.

Since Zinedine Zidans head butting at the World Cup in Germany, anything rough, foul and physical has perfectly fitted the description of the masculine style of doing things. So they dominate high charged games like football, racing, hockey, cricket and rugby. The fairer sex, being fair, presumably, engages in the gentler version of sport swimming, tenniswhere strain, exertion, tear wear and the masculinizing effects of sport are limited (Griffin, 1993, 193). These games attract less media and audience attraction, less packages and athlete idolizing, like soccer did to Pele, Maradona and their male kind. Who doesnt know or has never heard of Ronaldo, Kaka and David Beckham Tiger Woods could be famous for the wrong reasons, but then whenever you hear Tiger, you see a Nike cape, a smooth face and a golf club on a green lawn in the woods. And for Serena- or any female athlete for that matter, the picture is never complete without a voluptuous breasts popping out of a thin bra, and a peeping g-string beneath a thigh-high mini. But in rare occasions, like the September 11 US Open, the female presence manifests itself in a more assertive and physical manner.
This is the quality of aggressiveness (Theberge, 2003, 504) that female athletes have acquired through sport, signaling a shift from feminine tendencies. Despite the odds and challenges associated with being female, coupled with the patriarchal attitude of a male dominated media industry, a number of female athletes have played their way into the center of the game, all the while shaping and defining the changing feminine social trends. This essay focuses on the exploits of the worlds most celebrated female athlete in recent times, tennis player Serena Williams.

Born on September 26, 1981, Saginaw, Michigan, Serena Jameka Williams is one of the best female tennis players in the world, currently ranked number one. She is the sister to Venus Williams, also a former world champion. She grew up in the poor violence prone suburb of Compton in Los Angeles. Together with her sister, she started playing tennis at the age of four on the public lawns of Compton, where they often had to duck gunfire. Perhaps it was from this harsh environment where one is always on the guard and physical agility is necessary for survival, that Serena nurtured her style of powerful game, tough determination, possessing hard ground strokes and superb athleticism (Answers.com, 2010). She first played her professional tournament in WTA in 1997 in Moscow in which she lost. She was later to defeat seventh ranked Mary Pierce, and then fourth placed Monica Seles, making her rise from the 403rd position to number 102.

She quickly established herself as a force in tennis, with successive wins in the singles title in 1999 US Open. The big break-through came in the 2002-2003 season, with the famous Serena Slam by winning all the four grand slam titles the 2002 French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles, and the 2003 Australian Open, before making another hit with the Wimbledon in 2003 and 2009, the Australian Open in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, and the U.S. Open in 2008 (Answers.com, 2010).

Dealing with injuries at one time became her biggest challenge that often led to withdrawals from matches and defeats. The year 2000 in particular was rough for the then No. 22 player. Despite winning against Hingis to retain the Los Angeles Title and winning another one at Hanover, a ligament injury saw her lose in the Paris Indoor competition. She surrendered from a match against Hingis in the Canadian Open due to foot inflammation. It also denied her the US Open doubles semi finals. The last blow that sent her into recession was a meniscus tear during the second round of the Amelia Island Tournament (Answers.com, 2010).
 She was to wait until 2002 in the Australian Open to defeat the worlds top trio, comprising of her sister Venus, Hingis and Capriati to rise to second spot, behind her sister. She finally defeated her at the Wimbledon final and with the victory, became the worlds number one female athlete in tennis. The media hyper about the Serena Sensation sold her to the corporate world, which opened avenues for endorsement packages and inevitably, the celebrity status of stardom. It is at this point that Nike got into the game, with its sporting aesthetics of lingerie shows and flesh display entertainment. At the September 11 US Open, beneath a flesh hugging mini-dress whose design portrayed excellent knowledge of cloth economics, every body detail was nakedly prominent.

It has long been assumed that female contribution to sport is purely aesthetic..to decorate, feminize and soup it up for the indulgence of mens appetite and gaze since men form the majority viewing audience for womens sporting events (WS 240, Lecture x, Winter 2010).  Why else would they don skimpy and tight-fitting games kit It must have been an ingenious discovery by Nike that a little more flesh, more bum and butt are necessary to sex up the game. Without the bras and tale telling lingerie strings- which actually linger around the places they are supposed to cover, very few people (read men) would care about womens sport events and perhaps remember that anything ever happened at all (WS 240, Lecture x, Winter 2010).

Through the art of constructing the truth, Nike surely knows how to make the image click and stick in the minds of the audience. The female body, with its appealing feminine features, becomes an object through which the corporate sector packages and sells its products to the public. They introduce a constructed truth on how the ideal dress-code ought to be, and in so doing promote a social lifestyle ideology that infects the audience. The media plays its role of repackaging the female athlete image, by drawing attention to the parts that matter. However, Helstein (p 290) says that such constructions by Nike are not necessarily a way to progress to a more true self.

In the capitalist market, sports have been transformed into products that can be sold to the media. Marxist and Socialist ideologies argue that it is this capitalist commercialization of sports that has led to the exploitation of women by the media and corporate sector. It is a fact that dressed in any other way, Serena Williams (and other women as well) are truly gorgeous and uh, appealing. However, a generous display of flesh makes her appear a little more delicious in the eyes of men. Now, that is what every other woman wishes for herself the image that makes heads turn in the streets, unless the man she just passed has a very stiff neck. The media preys on their gullibility to sell this belief. As Birrell  McDonald, (2000, p.11) observes, The easiest way to get to ideology is through the media.  The advertising corporations generally target men, reason why sensuality and baser passions are strong factors in this regard. So it is the necessity to create this effect that Serenas on-the-court attire (like other female athletes) is scarce on all the wrong places the very ones that the media captures to feed their audience with. Nonetheless, her physique and power display deviate from popular belief that ladies should be gentle, vulnerable and fragile in the feminine way that makes them attractive to the masculine opposite. Threatening the judge for pointing out her fault is not a feminine nature. Similarly, her language sounded masculine and equally intimidating, contrary to their nature of silence in the game (Griffins 195). This suggests the de-feminization effect that sports has on female athletes, who toughen up and assume masculine qualities.note William Serenas words Im going to shove this ball down your f------ throat

In the Victorian times, women were allowed to engage in physical activities of a suitable kind, in moderation, without overindulgence or risk of strain, which were considered to enhance the health of their potential to conceive health children (Hargreaves, p 57 Cited in WS 240, Lecture_Outline_2, Winter 2010).
Kim Clijsters gave this impression, but Williams portrayed the exact opposite. One is made to believe that she can deliver a devastating punch with her powerful hands. Note that one feature that defines her playing styles is physical strength her ground strokes are hard and fast. This creates the impression that women can get as good as any man.

Nonetheless, what this implies, I think, is the fact that women are breaking into the world of men hard and furious. In the Grecian period, women were killed for the mere offense of watching men at play. Instead, says Lenskyj (1986), they were encouraged to focus on their natural and patriotic roles as wives (qtd by Griffin in Cahn and OReilly, 2007, 193). The patriarchal dominance upon women is evident from this early period, which the Marxists would argue is even more prominent in the capitalist world today. They were prohibited from physical aggressiveness, explaining their inhibiting but highly ornamental attire (Hargreaves 54). The ornamental attire, apparently, was intended to please men and feed their fancies. And when they overcame these restrictions by excelling in sporting activities long dominated by men, they became victims of their femininity they were commoditized into beautiful objects that could be packaged and sold to the media.
In conclusion, the place of female athletes in sports is gaining a new meaning that will perhaps become evident in the near future. Their femininity makes them objects of desire that the capitalist market exploits for a commercial gain. However, the physical strength and power displayed suggest that women are becoming more aggressive and ready to participate in physically charged games. Presently, we have womens soccer world cup games, previously considered too rough for their soft bodies. Defying the conventions and challenging men in sports is the one way through which they have empowered themselves in a male dominated world (Theberge, 203, p 500). They have changed the rules of the game in their favor, and it might not be long before they don skin tight shorts on a rugby pitch.