In recent years, athletes such as Lawrence Phillips and the Glen Ridge Guys have faced increased scrutiny for their violent crimes against women. The Glen Ridge Guys had an unwavering and brazen habit of demeaning women. Lefkowitz emphasizes that the Glen Ridge sportspeople came from two-parent white families who live in a posh neighborhood – a far cry from Phillips’ experience as a black man raised in foster families. They have in common with Phillips because they both play soccer. Since many professional and leading college athletes are black, male athletes’ criminality is often regarded as attacks on black men’s criminality. There are serious and significant racial issues in sports, and the issue of athletes perpetrating violence against women or other offenses is not unique to sportspeople of any race.
Personal Thoughts
I believe that aggressive behaviors in male players are unique to the world of sports, which trains kids in a single-sex environment where aggressive behavior is valued. The team bond develops early in life, and boys learn that what matters most is their team members; girls are most elaborate. Athletic participation, unlike many other tasks, is both sex-specific and competent; this causes people to bond in aspects harmful to the ladies they encounter in other circumstances. Indeed, even professional, married athletes frequently engage in sexual voyeurism, viewing sex and female nudity as something that should be enjoyed with team members. Women’s dehumanization may lead sportspeople to trust they can treat a woman however they choose, resulting in violence. Sportspeople in some sporting events are predicted to be violent, so aggressiveness toward women off the field is a logical outcome of physical aggression toward opposition on it. Athletes are intended to manage their aggressive behavior on the field, and they should be anticipated to do the same off the field. When sportspeople misbehave on the ground, they face penalties and, in some cases, imprisonment. If athletes are different, it implies that Leslie Faber’s rape would not have occurred if Glen Ridge High’s “in crowd” was not made up of jocks. Perhaps things would improve if the cool kids’ elite class treasured intelligence and education. Then perhaps Glen Ridge High would not have had a rigid social hierarchy in which the vulnerable could be manipulated to the point of a violent rape.
Agents of Socialization
There are several institutional and other sources of socialization, which are referred to as socialization agents. In this novel, one of the significant agents of socialization is family. Athletes came from two-parent white families in a posh neighborhood – a far cry from Phillips’ experience as a black man raised in foster families. The family factor plays a more significant role in how both white children and blacks interact. Many people in society would presumably find it more difficult to forgive the Guys than kids brought up in impoverished neighborhoods. The second agent of socialization in the media. The media is commonly responsible for youth misconduct and many other societal inequalities in a continuing debate. The media also underlines racial and gender stereotypes, such as the assumption that ladies are sexual objects and thus suitable targets for male violence. The media portrayed Parker, who is black, as “some kind of sick animal (Lefkowitz, 2020).” Parker quickly admitted his mistake and apologized. Compared to the Glen Ridge Guys’ hatred of women, Parker had a long-term partner at the time of his violent act, whom he treated with respect and decency, and who stuck with him despite criticism.
Major Theories of Development
The book is associated with Goffman because it discusses people’s stigmas, particularly football. The definition of dishonour, first propagated in sociological literature with Erving Goffman’s research, characterizes stigma as a “spoiled identity,” or when a person has an unfavorable characteristic that distinguishes them from others (Maseda, 2017). Stigma is a notion that emerges when a social community wields dominance by labeling and stereotyping those who are perceived to be distinctive. Different people are labeled dysfunctional because shame signals draw attention to a demeaning persona that deviates from the traditionally thought standard. As a result, normative people experience disillusionment from the dominant party, a lack of rank, and bias.
Social identification academics have also expanded on Goffman’s concepts by defining how social labelling creates diminished labels. The term “verbal labelling” refers to the process by which the ‘social mind’ actively considers one side of comparison while dismissing the other as epistemologically unproblematic (Maseda, 2017). On the one hand, a marked identification is overemphasized, while its worth is greatly underestimated. On the other hand, an unmarked character is played down and goes undetected. Many labeled people receive disproportionate coverage in contrast to their statistics, even though unmarked people are more common. Papered distinctions for those with identified names create a false sense of homogeneity. Furthermore, the current characteristics of the named person must be extended to all representatives of the group assigned to the defined individual. When a member of an unlabelled group shares qualities with a member of a marked group, the overlapping is thought to be idiosyncratic to the personality or global to the human experience (Manning, 2016). Gender and race are famous organizational examples: women are numbered, men are unlabelled, blacks are unmarked, and whites are unmarked.
Conclusion
Reviewing this novel has brought the most energizing light to social category and peer division principles. Glen Ridge High School’s jocks saw themselves as the pinnacle of the line, and no one should alter anything except their companions, and indeed not the regulations. They seemed to think of themselves as invincible. They harmed several other people’s lives when they did this, with Leslie having the most influence. We will never know what motivated these boys, whether it was a sense of male power, resilience, or just complete disregard for anyone. When you could feel Leslie’s anguish through Lefkowitz’s words, this story was convincing, enraging, and heart-breaking.
