Last semester when I took Culture & Technology I we had to develop a research project based on an artifact (object). I chose to do my project on my Mizuno Frenzy fastpitch bat. This project was by far the most interesting research I have done. Looking up information about the Mizuno fastpitch bat was intriguing because there were so many different factors that went into the bat that I had never realized. For example the material make up (carbon fibre and where specifically it comes from), the invention/maker of the Japanese company, the socio-cultural aspects of the bat, the physics/science behind the bat, and I just never realized how one artifact could tell such a big story.Some of the complications I had while doing research was that there wasn't a lot of information about composite fastpitch bats, in fact a lot of papers were either written on baseball bats or aluminum bats. Also, the history of a fastpitch bat was extremely hard to come by. However, this made my research all the more interesting because I realized that it wasn't just the information you found, but the information you didn't find that said a lot about an object.
The big story that I found about my object was about the gender narrative. For me it was about showing how the fastpitch bat was made to represent women, and the baseball bat men. I took a socio-cultural (and symbolic) approach showing how the Fastpitch bat was seen as lesser object than the baseball bat through the history (or narratives of the bats), through the material and make up of the bat and through the advertising of the bat. I showed that the fastpitch bat was unnatural/untraditional/and all together a crutch that women relied on to get power. Meanwhile the baseball bat is seen as natural, traditional, and a tool used by men to exert their power.
This research project proved to be so interesting to me because it made me think of the object I have been using all my life in so many different ways and had I not researched this artifact it would have just remained an object I use. Now I see my bat as a controversial object, however after my "big story" I will not let my bat define me and my strength and I would advocate for a change in the way the fastpitch bat is advertised to women/men. Researching an artifact is worth the time, because although you are not focusing on a group of people, in the end you kind of are (along with so many other things) which makes the object all the more exciting.
ReplyDeleteFascinating! I would have never expected a bat to be imbued with a narrative about gender, I would have typically associated gender narratives with objects that are more "obvious", for example, makeup and man-skirts.
When I looked up "fastpitch bat", I learnt that it is also called "girls softball bat" as though it was only meant for a single gender. I imagine that if I played softball, learning about these information about the bat I'm using would make me wonder whether my game play exemplified or went against stereotypes. This also makes me think about what competing or fighting on level ground means if we had co-ed softball or other sports in general. Does it mean everyone should use the same equipment or that everyone should just use equipment that they feel most confident with?