Barbara J. Risman defines gender as a “social structure comprised of three analytically distinct levels: self, interactions, and institutions” (Chafetz 1). In the Penny Marshall directed A League of Their Own, we are provided with the story of nine women athletes who played for the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The AAGPBL was sponsored by wealthy businessmen in order to fill the void in professional baseball left by all the player who marched off to war. In this film we are provided with an array of gender images that are fairly true to society’s valuation and construction of gender. We see gender is constructed in the film from self-perception (Kit), social interaction (Dottie and Jimmy), and institutions (Major league baseball, corporate America).
During WWII, American women were encouraged to liberate themselves from the domestic sphere and take employment in factories as Rosie the Riveter became an American icon. Strong, independent females were suddenly in vogue, and the women in this film are delighted to discover they are a highly professional group of athletes – an image that was not condoned or thought of as being something of which the female gender was capable. In the film we see many ideologies surrounding gender that modern society and its institutions continue to perpetuate. One of these is the fact that sex sells, and a pretty woman is much more desirable than a plain looking one. We see this example brought out clearly in the film as Marshall gently ridicules the preoccupation with makeup, dress, and manners as the girls are sent to charm school in order to increase their appeal to ticket-holders. When Helen Haley says “Has anyone seen my new red hat?, Dottie replies, “Oh, piss on your hat!” Further, in one scene we get a poignant look at how women are often marginalized because of the lack of physical appeal. In one scene the recruiter Ernie Capadino remarks to ...