Women in Sports, the Paradigm Shift from Taken-for-Granted to Critical Thinking Doctor Chandler Gilman once said, In women, inferiority of the locomotive apparatus of physical labour, is apparent in all parts The brain is both absolutely and relatively smaller than in men. Women have an abundant supply of soft and semi-fluid cellular tissue which creates softness and delicacy of mind, low power, nonresistance, passivity and under favourable circumstances, a habit of self-sacrifice. This is one of many taken-for-granted beliefs, which was typical in the past and seen quite frequently up to thirty years ago. Throughout history, women actively participated in sports in a patriarchal society and the viewpoint was that women were depicted as weaker and not as capable of physical activity, that their role in sports was limited to spectatoring. Women thirty years ago and to this current day, are fighting to shred off taken-for-granted assumptions of women not capable of physical activity, and to observe females in a new critical light, that they are equal to their male counterparts in sports. To see the paradigm shift from the taken-for-granted to critical, it will be shown through the historical, present and different and new ways to keep on thinking critically, in order to maintain a future of women in sports. As well there will be a discussion throughout on the re-thinking of my personal assumptions of women in sports, all of this will attempt to prove that women have certainly come a long way in the last thirty years and will continue to reach new heights from a critical perspective.Throughout much of history, women have been perceived as inferior to men and have been denied access to equal opportunities in most social institutions, including sport. The study of female involvement in sport reveals an interesting example of social change, both within and across cultures. This social change has involved cultural definitions of ...
