Guest Post: Gender in Sport
Along with documenting my athletic career I also want to dedicate some blog space to talking about gender within sport. For kinesiology students at the UofC, it is required to complete 2 gender and sport classes. Taking these two classes led to an extreme interest in the topic of gender within society and I enrolled in several more gender classes within the anthropology and women's studies departments. What was the biggest take away from all these classes? Individuals are taught current societal norms, not born with them. Gender polarization is a societal construction. There is no innate standard of masculinity and femininity and the body is not a self paradigm. These ideas will be further unpacked in future blog posts and related to my own personal experiences within sport.
Switching gears, it is extremely important to not only talk about one's own experiences but to be allies for those who have less privilege. My younger brother, an ex hockey player, is a current kinesiology student at the UofC. Last semester he completed his second gender and sports class and had to write a critical analysis based on any gender in sport issue. I was pretty surprised when he decided to centre this paper on women in sport and how they are affected by hyper masculinity and hyper femininity. It's quite well written and extremely insightful (and I'm not just saying that because I edited it):
Within society exists a collection of unwritten rules that dictate how individuals are supposed to act based on their gender identification at birth. In today’s socially constructed society men are expected to express masculine traits while women feminine traits. These discourses surrounding traditional gender norms are extremely pervasive throughout the various areas of society. One of the most prevalent areas in which this is present is sport. Since its creation, sport has had a male dominance. The focus of this paper is to examine how female athletes are impacted by traditional gender norms in the context of socially constructed hyperfeminized & hypermasculinized sports. This examination will look at women participation in hyperfeminine and hypermasculine sports, expectations placed on them, and their response.
Since the growth of women’s participation in modern sports, there has been a societal expectation for women to participate in ‘feminine’ sports, such as gymnastics and figure skating. These expectations have been generated and reinforced by traditional gender norms that impose barriers and limitations on female athletes. A glaring example of these societal limitations is the expectation that women athletes should have a specific body type. Traditionally, figure skaters were expected to be petite women who danced across the ice with grace and artistic intent. When athletes are powerful and physically dominant skaters, like Surya Bonaly, they are not rewarded for their high level of skill, but instead are cast down because they are deemed too masculine and do not fit the traditional ‘ice princess’ look (ESPN, 2015). A body with legs that are “too thick” and biceps that are “too large” are pointed out and ridiculed by the media, with the idea that they do not belong in a ‘feminine’ women’s sport. For Bonaly, she was unable to win at the World Championships or Olympics and felt the judges valued the artistic style of her more ‘feminine’ competitors compared to her powerful and ‘masculine’ form of figure skating (ESPN, 2015). This body shaming surrounding powerful, muscular female athletes is present in other sports that typically showcase more traditional feminine bodies. Serena Williams, who is arguably the greatest women tennis player of all time, has been a victim to this form of social discourse (Shultz, 2005). During the 2002 US Open, Serena Williams chose to wear a tight spandex outfit that put on display her ironically powerful, muscular body. William’s went on to dominate and win the US Open, but the media was not focused on this aspect. Instead, there was outrage that William’s was too muscular and comments were made that she didn’t belong in the sport of women’s tennis (Shultz, 2005).
The media’s representation of women’s bodies reinforces the ideas of traditional gender norms regardless of the femininity or masculinity of the sport. Sports coverage, social media, and magazine covers consistently focus more on the athlete’s physical ‘feminine’ appearance, instead of their actual abilities. In “Media Exposure and Influence of Female Athlete Body Images”, Christensen and Deutsch (2015) argue that sports coverage likes to focus on women’s bodies to draw a larger audience. Using the London Olympics as an example, they referenced how the majority of pictures from the female beach volleyball tournament were taken from behind and featured women bending over in defensive positions. By sexualizing the female body, the media is emphasizing that feminine aesthetics has a higher importance in women’s sport than their performance. This is further exemplified in that women athlete’s often feel that to receive media attention they have to pose in sexually suggestive magazines (Smallwood, Brown, & Billings, 2014). This reinforcement of sexuality over performance trivializes women athletic accomplishments in favor of labeling women athletes as little more than glorified sex objects.
The media also reinforces traditional gender norms through its use of language. Specific language employed by the media has a significant impact on society’s perception of men’s and women’s sports (Koivula, 1999) The use of gender discriminatory language has become so common place in modern media coverage that it often goes unnoticed without a critical eye. By referring to women’s teams as ‘ladies’ women are being infantilized through gender marking. Also, men’s sports are positioned as the gold standard, by which women are compared to (Kiovula, 1999). This is demonstrated in comments made by Indian Wells CEO, Raymond Moore, that women should be thanking God for male tennis players carrying them (Vallejo, 2016). Even the number one ranked male’s tennis player at the time, Novak Djokovic, supported this type of notion by stating that men deserved to earn more money than women tennis players (Vallejo, 2016). This language presents men’s participation in sport as normal and women’s as abnormal, decreasing the legitimacy of women’s overall participation (Koivula, 1999). The media’s influence on society is extremely extensive and allowing the continued usage of such language creates a huge barrier to the notion that women belong in sport to the same extent men do.
Women who participate in ‘masculine’ sports face their own set of adversaries. When examining sports like rugby and MMA, there is no performance advantage for expressing feminine traits. Athletes are often rewarded in these types of sports for displays of aggression, toughness, and strength, all of which are deemed masculine traits. Historically, gender issues within these sports were nonexistent, as women were simply excluded on the basis that these masculine sporting arenas were too dangerous and women too fragile to participate. Now, conflicting dominant discourses exist in which women athletes are supposed to be feminine enough for society yet ‘masculine’ enough to excel within their sport. This can be seen in race driver Danica Patrick. Patrick, who is famously known as the first women to ever compete in the NASCAR series, may even be better known for her racy Go Daddy commercials that often feature her with little to no clothes.
Women who participate in masculine sports are regularly questioned for their choice to play them. These questions stem from global perceptions that women should follow stereotypical gender norms and regulate their behaviors according to what society deems fit (Dorothy & Deborah, 2006). Women who engage in masculine sports challenge traditional gender ideas and resist societal influence. In response, the media has lashed out at these athletes by classifying them as masculine, animalistic, not feminine enough, too strong, too powerful and so on. When Caster Semenya dominated the 800m at the World Championships in 2009, she was accused of being a man by a competitor. Due to this accusation, which was based solely on her ‘masculine’ appearance, Semenya was forced to submit to sex testing or be banned from track and field. In the words of Stanford Bioethicist Katrina Karkazis, this unjust punishment that was brought down on Semenya was all due her being “too fast and supposedly too masculine” by constructed standards of women’s athletes (Longman, 2016). Even though track and field events are largely based on pure athleticism (masculine trait), there still exists a need to discriminate against women athletes who are deemed to possess athletic ability above what is acceptable for a woman. In doing so, the celebration of athletics and women performing amazing feats has been trivialized and instead looked down upon with disgrace (Dorothy & Deborah, 2006).
Female athletes who perform and excel in masculine sports experience oppression and sexism from the media constantly. Anika Sorenstam, who was the only female golfer to be invited to play in the men’s 2003 Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour, was continually described as a player who had good composure and courage (lgatto13, 2016). The media failed to mention her obvious talent, skill, or achievement of being able to play such a high level of golf, even defeating many of the male players. During the Rio Olympics, when Corey Cogdell-Unrein won a bronze medal in trap shooting, the Chicago Tribune referred to her not by her name, but as the wife of a Chicago Bears lineman (D’Onofrio, 2016). This sort of marginalization displays how the media feels the need to assert Cogdell’s role as a wife rather as a successful athlete in a masculine sport. Sherry, Osborne, and Nicholson argue that by developing these differences between the female and male players, ideas about dominant male masculinity is supported and maintained in the sporting world (2016).
The oppression women face by participating in “masculine” sports presents a unique opportunity. With power comes resistance. The basis for this concept can be seen in an analyzation of Foucault’s work on power relations that describes a model for power that moves away from ideas of subordination (Deveaux, 1994). Instead, there is the idea that power is a constructed concept. Power is not only a top-down process but is also a bottom-up in that the oppressed individual has a role in reproducing ideas of dominant discourse that gives power to the oppressors. In rejecting ideas of dominant gender discourse women can therefore resist the oppression being placed on them. In a study examining women rugby players, the athletes talked about how, to them, the most important thing was getting bigger and stronger to help the team win (Chase, 2006). This example shows how when faced with competing discourses about gender, the women are choosing to resist traditional ideas about femininity to succeed in their chosen sport. It can also be seen that these women are fully aware of their actions as they felt a sense of pride in being able to show off large bruises attained during games as a badge of honor (Chase, 2006). This shows that “masculine” classified sports enable women to openly resist traditional gender roles in more ways than just through participation. The most famous example of this is when superstar UFC fighter Ronda Rousey stated during a vlog that her body was developed for being an MMA champion and not to “fuck millionaires” (Shelburne, 2015). Vulgarity aside, Rousey acts as a role model for millions of young girls by utilizing the ultra-aggressive sport of MMA fighting to resist traditional ideas of femininity and in the process empowering others to do the same.
In the context of women and girls participating in sport there exists external pressures from dominant societal discourses to perform a specific way and display feminine characteristics. The media reinforces these gender norms through the sexualization of women bodies; specific language and predatory backlash against women athletes who try to deviate away from socially constructed gender discourses. In this paper, we examined the oppression and resistance of female athletes in both hyperfeminine and hypermasculine sporting environments. It was realized that both sporting spaces are impacted by gender discourses in different ways. Women are expected to excel within sport yet not display the physical strength and traditionally ‘masculine’ traits sport requires to be competitive. Within hyperfeminine sports, women are praised as long as they display grace and elegance. Within hypermasculine sports, focusing on their bodies and ignoring their performance trivializes women’s participation. Women are essentially in a lose-lose scenario. Yet, despite these societally placed obstacles, women athletes still choose to participate and resist societal expectations. Knowing the backlash they will inevitably receive, women still are willing to strive for performance excellence. As amazing as these women are, this is not a choice that should exist. Resistance is only made possible through oppression and oppression exists due to socially constructed societal norms. It is evident through examining their struggle that women are negatively impacted by the restrictions placed upon them. Resistance is important to bring light to the issue, but it is imperative to understand the root of the problem and what must change: socially constructed traditional gender norms.
References
Chase, L. F. (2006). (Un) Disciplined bodies: A Foucauldian analysis of women’s rugby. Sociology of sport journal, 23(3), 229-247.
Christensen, J., & Deutsch, J. (2015). Media exposure and influence of female athlete body images. International Journal of Human Sciences, 12(1), 480–486. https://doi.org/10.14687/ijhs.v12i1.3138
Deveaux, M. (1994). Feminism and empowerment: A critical reading of Foucault. Criticism & Interpretation, 20, 223-248.
Dorothy, L., & Deborah, L. (2006). Girlie Girls and Manly Men: Children's Stigma Consciousness of Gender in Sports and Physical Activity. Journal of Leisure Research, 38(4), 536–557.
ESPN (2015). The Story of Surya Bonaly’ Full Backflip on Ice. Retrieved from: http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=13416371
Igatto13. (2016, December 2). Representations of female golfers through commentary and imagery. Retrieved from: https://cmns324.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/representations-of-female-golfers-through-commentary-and-imagery/
Koivula, N. (1999). Gender Stereotyping in Televised Media Sport Coverage. Sex Roles, 41(7/8), 589–604.
Longman, J. (2016, August 18). Understanding the controversy over Caster Semenya. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/sports/caster-semenya-800-meters.html?_r=0
Shelburne, R. (2015, August 8). Exclusive: Rousey says she’s down but not out. ESPN the Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/espnwrousey/in-exclusive-interview-ronda-rousey-says-not-losing-holly-holm
Sherry, E., Osborne, A., & Nicholson, M. (2016). Images of sports women: A review. Sex Roles, 74(7), 229-309. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0493-x.
Smallwood, R. R., Brown, N. A., & Billings, A. C. (2014). Female Bodies on Display: Attitudes regarding female athlete photos in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue and ESPN: The magazine's body issue. Journal of Sports Media, 9(1), 1-22.
Vallejo, J. J. (2016, March 22). Serena Williams, Raymond Moore, and tennis’ eternal gender gap. Rolling Stone. Retrieved from: http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/serena-williams-raymond-moore-and-tennis-eternal-gender-gap-20160322