The Pain of The Pigskin While Dealing With a Patriarchy
             An essay by Don Sabo entitled "Pigskin Patriarchy and Pain" Sabo points the spotlight at the issue of gender roles, or more specifically young boys being taught to be masculine. What Sabo is trying to get across is that, the pain principal is wrong, and that being a man is not about taking the pain or oppressing emotions, being a man is doing what will better one and his family. Sabo's essay is both informing and persuading, he offers numerous eye opening personal examples. Sabo is obviously a talented writer and this essay is no exception.
             As Don Sabo has done many times in the past he sat down to write, but something was different today. What was different? Sabo was no longer in pain. As a young impressionable boy in western Pennsylvania, being unsatisfied with his body, he came up with a way to improve it. Sabo was going to try out for football, a manly sport, a sport where pain and injury are irrelevant and "just part of the game". Sabo learned to be vicious, he would gain attention in doing so, but he was unaware of the long-term damage he was doing to his body. Years after his athletic carrier was over he underwent back spinal surgery to repair the damage that playing football had caused him.
             Boys are taught that to be a man they must physically prove themselves and not let pain slow them down. This is what Sabo calls "the pain principal" this philosophy is evident in the saying "no pain no gain" that everyone has heard at least once in their life (Sabo 159). Boys are taught to ignore injury, and that it is manly to pretend the pain is nonexistent. Our social system is one dominated by men, called a Patriarchy, there are two aspects to this, one is a system in which men overpower women, and the second is a small group of men dominate all others (Sabo 159-160).
             Patriarchy being a form of hierarchy breeds ine...