Module 10

One of the main types of prejudice that affects my life and angers me the most is how men's sports teams get so many more benefits than women's teams. I have a couple of friends who play varsity sports at Divison I schools and a lot of them have similar stories. The men's teams usually have better practice times which are more convenient, whereas the women have random times that fall right during lunch or something like that. This is if, of course, women are even allowed to practice on the "men's field" which is always the nicest field available to the school. Men's teams are also known to fly to away games when needed; on the contrary, many women's teams do not have the funding available for that and have to take busses to the same types of games. Men usually get better referees, more attention in academics and more benefits overall.

I understand that men's games generally attract more fans which brings in more revenue for the team. Because they have more money, they are able to afford more of these benefits than women are. However, women are working just as hard and seem to be getting the short end of the stick. They put in just as many practice hours and I feel they deserve to be treated the same as the men's team.

Hate crimes maintain systems of inequality by reiterating the myth that some people are better than others purely because of race, sex, sexual orientation, appearance, etc. The main types of hate crimes that I am aware of are ones in the 1960's and 1970's against gay people. I took a human sexuality course last semester and we learned about how young gays were hung, stoned, and killed in other horrible ways simply because of their sexual orientation. I was raised to be very open to people of all race, orientation, etc. and was horrified to learn that things like this happened, and not very long ago.