Difference between Female and Male Sports: Softball vs. Baseball

Running head: SOFTBALL VS BASEBALL
Difference between Female and Male Sports: Softball vs. Baseball
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The sport of baseball has remained male dominated for the pat century. Even though the sport was for all the genders, it is imperative to note that over the part 100 years it has become increasingly a game of the male while the female have dominated the softball. Between 1866 and 1935, women actively participated in amateur, semi-professional and professional baseball. However, two incidences during the time around this period significantly changed the perception of women involvement in the game of baseball. These were the World War II and the formation of the American Softball Association. The association created a picture that softball was the best sport for women and engrained further the doctrine of male chauvinist that women were weaker sexes. The image of softball nicely coincided with the image that women were a weaker sex. This meant that the women culturally had to accept that baseball was an absolutely a male endeavour that they should not indulge in. The history and chronology of these discriminatory thinking explains how base ball became officially gendered and andocentric. The American culture clearly defined baseball as a male domain and softball as its female equivalent thus polarising the two sports in the line of gender (Berlage, 2000).
Baseball and softball are almost similar in all aspects with just few differences for example; the base paths in softball are several feet shorter than those in baseball. When pitchers throw from 35 feet, the bases typically are 55 feet apart. Similarly, when the pitchers deliver balls at 40 feet, the bases take theirs at 60 feet. This definitely implies that the infield area of the pitchers in softball is smaller compared to that of baseball....