ad lost none of the feminine qualities that would make them attractive mates and mothers (711).
Female athletes also ascribe different reasons for participation in sports than do males. Boys tend to participate in sports for reasons like competition, team membership, skill improvement, demonstration of competence and fun, (Ballinger 907). Girls, in contrast, participate in sports to have fun and be a team member, but they also participate to improve their appearance and control their weight (Ballinger 907). Such motivations make female athletes susceptible to a variety of eating disorders and health problems. They often starve themselves while expending additional energy on athletics in order to attain some media portrayal or male ideal of feminine appearance. Such motives can be dangerous.
Ballinger argues that another danger lurks when female athletes move from the amateur to the professional realm of sports. Such a transition also posits women into the male model of sports. In other words, women must often abandon their own identity much as male athletes do in order to satisfy the demands of economics and audiences. The owners in sports are out to profit from it. The media profits from sports by selling advertising based on attracting large audiences of sports consumers. Female athletes must often abandon their own identity and their personal lives in order to satisfy the demands of both. Such a male-imposed model of sports is risky to the character development and happiness of both male and female professional athletes. By merely adopting the same model, Ballinger questions is such a move really equates to progress for women and increased identity and choice:
One must question how much joy can be derived from playing through pain and injury, from being on the road the better part of the year, or from masking personal emotions and giving up personal identity to take on the role of heroine and role model for th...