Regretable Common-Place Quotation of the Tennis World-- Australian Open 2010

Disclaimer: The topic of this Rhetoric analysis comes from a statement made by two Chinese women that made it to the Australian Open semi-final this year. It was a remarkable thing to have two women of Chinese origin reach the semi-finals--it had not been done in many years. Neither of the women made it to the finals but after their semi-final matches they were asked a question that envoked a intriguing response.

The question: "In your opinion, why are their so few Chinese men playing professional tennis?" (there are no Chinese men in the top 300)
Response: "They are sleeping...one day they will wake up."

This response opens up a world of backgound implications. From this response I recognize not only a lack of respect for Tennis in China, but also that Tennis holds a stigma of being highly feminine. This stigma also communicates a level of gender discrimination and conflict--some Chinese women quite obviously have discovered the benefit's of professional tennis, while Chinese males continue to hold it in a low regard consequently finding Chinese women professional tennis players in a stigmatized light. -----While this assumptions may be stretching the implications of this quotation, I believe there is some truth to each claim that can be extracted through the right rhetorical methods.

(Prologue) Very specific gender equality laws have been put in place and are enforced in the world of all professional sports--tennis especially. Any ideology that finds tennis as a lower sport because of a delusion that it should be considered purely feminine is discriminatory to all players.

(Contrary): Women's tennis and Men's tennis are very strictly defined and equal. While the style of men's and woman's tennis varies sightly they are in every level equal--which is why mixed doubles exists. At all major tournaments men's and woman's matches alternate throughout the day, as do press conferences and practices. A more recent development produced to further establish equality is the introduction of women's night matches--traditionally women play first leaving men to play into all hours of the night. This is not longer the cast, no precedence is given to players gender in timing or any other aspect of the game. The same should apply across the world--neither gender should have precedence over the other, like no sport should be defined with a gender stigma.

(Exposition): Any individual having this type of prejudice mentality shows no concern for elements of this argument or the opinion of the rest of the world. Their particular ideologies show precedence over equality laws in every genre. They have said to themselves "tennis (or whatever the particular venue may be) is a low corrupting form of entertainment with no productive consequences." This type of thinking is detrimental to the development of civilization and is rooted in ignorant culture biases.

(Comparison): People discriminated against based on class or race is dreadful, but those who classify a entire lifestyle of people in a negative light because of a disregard for recent gender equality ideologies is far worse.

(Intention): Most people who discriminate have obvious reasons or a background to aid in some explanation of their actions. Those who stigmatize a lifestyle, however only do so because they are far to arrogant and "stuck in their ways" to be introduced to a new way of thinking, and fundamentally to be introduced to the way in which the world in moving(hopefully, however slowly)--equality on every level.

(Digression): If a certain gender of one particular country holds a sport/lifestyle/gender in such a low esteem, then perhaps those who know different, and perhaps better, could convince them otherwise. No persons holding this type of prejudice in their life can see the world for what it truly is--they will be forever blinded to many beauties of life.

(Legality): It is a commonly held belief that it is right to treat all of fellow humanity equally despite race, gender, class, etc. so it follows suit that those who do not believe the same should be "shown the light."

(Justice): It is therefore just for those discriminatory individuals to be seen as ignorant to many sides of the world.

(Advantage): For those considered ignorant who change their insights, however slightly, the world/tennis/the evolution of gender equality will befit.

(Possibility): It would be easy to hold those who are ignorant in low esteem, but changes will only manifest when those believing differently will rise up and continue to show and reap the benefits of their lifestyles.