Sport

It has been an inherent trend to use mascots, nicknames and logos in representing athletic teams of schools and to distinguish them apart from the other teams. There is a trend prevalent in collegiate sports team to name the womens teams as the counterpart of the male team. This often ignored practice has become an issue relating to gender and sexism. This particular practice proliferate sexism and limited athletic opportunities for women. Most schools practice sexism nomenclature in naming their womens teams. Sexist language reflects and reconstructs unequal power relations between men and women (Pelak, 2008, p.189). Moreover, there is a disparity in the athletic opportunities that women can avail because of the limited number of womens teams in schools.

More than half of the colleges and universities in the United States use sexist names in naming their womens teams. These naming practices undermine and exclude women and promote male supremacy and domination as well as female subordination (Eitzen  Zinn, 1993). Most of women teams names are the female counterpart of the male teams. Thus, this shows that women are only second class athletes and that the mens team is main recipient of honor and recognition of the triumphs and victories in the sports activities. The name first recalls the mens team rather than the women who play the same sport. Personally, the names matters less in the teams performance. Women should have the liberty to disassociate themselves on the mens team. Gender issues have existed in the society even before, the naming practices of schools have become a tradition in most schools and for the purpose of easier identification. However, female subordination is becoming more prevalent because of this sexist nomenclature. There should be a reform stating that womens team is a different entity apart from the mens team to further foster camaraderie and harmonious relationship in the school setting.