Innate Abilities

Cassandra Stewart

Matthews

Innate Ability

Have you ever heard boys playing amongst themselves and use the phrase “you throw like a girl”? Where did this idea come from? People of every race, color, and gender are characterized by certain general stereotypes. These ideas have been embedded into our minds by researchers for decades. Boys are stronger than girls or the young is more agile than the old. These generalizations about our society have been around since the beginning of time. Actually when it comes to an individual’s ability to learn a skill in relation to one’s trait, overcoming obstacles is increased by motivation and determination, which leads to a greater performance. Gender and age stereotypes have recently been disputed because society’s way of realizing that skills can be learned and maintained.

At first society portrayed men as stronger than women, they were more ferior than women and provided shelter and food. Men were the bread- winner and ran the household financially, and women took care of the household internally. As time has gone by, women have showed that they too can be the bread- winner, and excel in areas such as sports as well as or equal to men. In “Throwing Like a Guy; The Mystique of Innate Ability”, it was discovered that different motor abilities are specific to particular tasks and function independently of one another. The distinction between the ability to learn a movement and the ability to perform it seemed relevant when making motor skill comparisons between male and female (57). Basically skills are learned , a person isn’t born knowing how to ride a bike for example. Which also brings up the fact that people believe the older you get the less you perform physically? Is this true? It has been documented that practice makes perfect. So technically would not, the older you get the better your physical performance gets.

In “The Best Pickup-Basketball Player in America”, the author Timothy Harper tells...