Problem
Your reputation for expertise in the sociological aspects of sport is growing. You have received yet another email from yet another acquaintance. He had been in a debate on social media about how and/or if gender shapes participation in sport. One person argued that gender does culturally influence participation in sport: women are culturally discouraged from participating in sport and as a result there are tremendous gender disparities in sport participation. Your acquaintance dissented, offering the example of soccer in the United States as evidence. Men do play soccer in healthy numbers in the U.S., but women participate just as much if not more-especially at the college level.
The other person responded by referring to a book by political scientists Andrei Markovits & Lars Rensmann (evidently it was a political scientifically informed social media site). But your acquaintance did not understand the argument. What is Markovits & Rensmann's argument about how gender culturally influences participation in sport? Does the case of soccer in the U.S. disprove that argument? If not, how does it account for strong women's participation in soccer in the U.S.? Email your acquaintance back and clear up what puzzles him.