Inequities in Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Elizabeth Lambert, a 20 year-old UNM soccer player has been getting huge news coverage due to her unsportsmanlike, violent conduct during a conference tournament game against BYU. She elbowed a BYU player in the stomach, punched one in the back, kicked one in the stomach, slapped one in the face, kicked the soccer ball in another players face, and even yanked one to the ground by her hair. Lambert has apoligized and expressed deep regret for her actions. She also mentioned the idea that she has been targeted because she is a female athlete, which I believe to be true. It doesn't excuse anything she has done, but I think there is definitely merritt behind her statement. Take, for instance, the amount of fights and violence that take place in men's sports. They are not called monsters and nobody suggests that they should be taken off the team or even suspended like in the case of Elizabeth Lambert. What about the football players that deliberately try to injure opposing players in order to gain an advantage? I have known tons of ex-football players, high school and collegiate that have tried purposely to injure another player, or have started a fight on the field, yet it doesn't draw attention, at least not as much as the Lambert incident has. These football players elbow eachother in the face, step on eachother, and try deliberately to seriously injure one another. For example, Albert Haynesworth, a former Tenessee Titans defensive lineman turned Redskin was expelled from a game after an attempt to stomp on a Dallas players face, leaving him with a severely swollen eye and stitches. Did people call him a monster? No. Did people say that he should never be allowed to return to the game? No. There are countless incidents like this that occur in mens' sports on a daily basis, including soccer. Not only do american football players injure eachother deliberately, so do european football players, its just a little less obvious.





PS: if you compare the comments below the videos, they will tell you the way americans feel about male and female violence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1nCHVINrGU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-pF3OHY1c

I know that there have been a few posts about video games from this class, and I like to keep the diversity, but I just feel compelled to write about the new game, Borderlands. In Borderlands, you can choose between 4 characters, 1 of which is a female. All the characters have their own unique superhuman abilities. Of course, I am always expecting the female characters to have at least strong characteristics, such as a more powerful appearance and less exaggerated female attributes. For instance, her alias is 'Siren,' and the other male characters are 'Brick,' 'Hunter,' and 'Soldier.' To get a better idea of what the characters look like, you can watch the intro trailer:


Her is a game description form the Borderlands Official Website and a list of some of their special abilities and character descriptions from the 'Borderlands Strategy Guide:'

Game Description
"Borderlands is an original first person role playing shooter game that combines the intuitive rewards system of action role playing games and the frantic paced shooting combat of first person shooters"

Roland "The Soldier"

Description:
Military trained killer
Prefers combat rifles and shotguns

Skills:
Impact
Defense
Fitness
Barrage
Metal Storm

Mordecai "The Hunter"

Description:
Master of long range combat
Prefers sniper rifles and revolvers

Skills:
Killer
Out for Blood
Lethal Strike
Predator
Aerial Impact

Lilith "The Siren"

Description:
Uses deception and trickery
Prefers incendiary, shock, and corrosive weapons

Skills:
Diva
Inner Glow
Hard to Get
Intuition
Mind Games

Brick "The Brick"

Description:
Ignores pain and hits hard
prefers explosive weapons and his fists

Skills:
Iron Fist
Short Fuse
Diehard
Safeguard
Unbreakable

I only took a sample of 5 skills out of each of the characters 21 skills. Lilith's skills represent witchery and favors deception as her description points out while the male characters represent physical strength and mental toughness. Even her favored weapon, the SMG (small machine gun) are smaller and less intimidating than her male counterparts. There is one good thing about this game that I must point out though, there is only one white male character, but he still is the most physically intimidating, towering over all other characters and resembling a roid-raging maniac. I'm not exactly sure what Mordecai is, but his name and facial features suggest something other than white. I'm thinking that he may be asian. Roland, the final male character is a black ex-soldier.

Lilith's female appearance is not as exaggerated as a lot of other video games, but she is still fragile and dainty looking. I would expect a veteran female mercenary to be extremely physically fit with a more 'salty' or hardened appearance. Especially if it is in a video game being as it is fantasy and the possibilities are endless.

I think game designers and developers are still sticking to the tried and true, trying to appeal to everyone without offending certain groups. It's good that they recognize that white males are not the only ones who use video games as entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I love it when a video game has a female main character, I eat it up, but lets try not to make them so hyper-femm. Not that there is anything wrong with being hyper-femm, its just not realistic for a mercenary to run around in heels. But then again, it is a video game. It needs some sort of sexual appeal, right?

ADHD and the Media

The amount of advertising to children since the 1984 deregulation of children's broadcasting by the FCC has increased exponentially. It has been proven that learning disabilities and inability to form stable emotional relationships in children is directly linked to amount of television watched. The cognitive and emotional development of American children is being stunted by big business' desire to profit off of a children s market. Not only are they profiting, they are causing ADHD to develop in children. The amount of children who have been diagnosed with ADHD since the 1980's has increased along with the increase in marketing towards kids. Much of the same symptoms known to accompany the increase in TV viewing are also symptoms of ADHD. Why can these media giants get away with this? They know perfectly well the harmful effects television can have on children, but they ignore it for the sake of acquiring a loyal customer for life.