The Brown Bag Series: Queer Studies in Conversation continued on Wednesday, Nov. 18 in the University Union where Todd Migliaccio, a Sac State sociology professor, discussed how the promotion of heterosexuality and masculinity in sports is the norm of society and how it maintains the gender and sexuality segregation within sports.

The Brown Bag Lunch Series is a space where faculty, staff, students and community members can come together to present research within queer and LGBT studies.

“We define sport as for men, and women’s access has been as audience members, supporters and cheerleaders.” Migliaccio said.

The discussion addressed how the expectations of sport are the same social expectations of men.

“There is an expectation that men are supposed to play through the pain,” Migliaccio said.

Migliaccio led the discussion into how society sees women and how they are accepted into sports. Differentiating the sport leagues by gender can lead to a difference in treatment, pay, funding for the event and attendance of sports that are comprised of women only.

The women who are successful in sports are viewed in American society as lesbians. Migliaccio said this marginalizes women who are not LGBTQ-identifying.

“Sport can be accessible and successful for everybody without defining it as masculine and feminine,” Migliaccio said.

Migliaccio showed clips of how women in sports are viewed lesser and how they have to emphasize attractiveness and that they are still feminine, which he calls the feminine apologetic.

“The male gaze comes out of feminist film theory, it’s how women are always evaluated from the perspective of a man and there have been some that argued the female gaze is when women do the same thing to other women,” said Tristan Josephson a Sac State women’s studies professor.

The Brown Bag Lunch Series: Queer Studies in Conversation will continue in the spring semester.

“We need to have more conversations and events about this topic,” said Sue Escobar, a Sac State criminal justice professor. “I am a strong proponent of having more of these events.”

The LGBT Brown Bag Series continued on Wednesday, Nov. 18 in the University Union. The “Brown Bag Lunch Series: Queer Studies in Conversation” was a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Sacramento State PRIDE Center.

The Brown Bag Lunch Series is a space where faculty, staff, students and community members can come together to present research within queer and LGBT studies.

The talk was about heteronormative attitudes in sports.

Dr. Todd Migliaccio, a Sac State sociology professor, discussed how the promotion of heterosexuality was the norm of society and how it maintains the gender and sexuality separation within sports.

“We define sports as for men, and women’s access has been as audience members, supporters and cheerleaders,” Migliaccio said.

Updated at 1:32 p.m. Nov.23 to reflect additional information