Title: Gender and Sports - Sociology of Sport - iResearchNet
Headings: Gender and Sports
Gender and Sports
Outline
Historical Developments and the Gendering of Sport
Sport, Gender, Power, and Physicality
Sport, Gender, and Contested Ideology
References:

Content: Liberal feminist accounts of sport are based on claims that women should have equal rights to those of men in terms of access to resources, opportunities to participate, and decision making positions. Radical feminists are critical of the patriarchal power relations that operate to maintain the dominance of heterosexuality and construct homophobic attitudes and practices in sport. Socialist feminists have examined the connections between gender, social class, and race and ethnicity under conditions of patriarchy, capitalism, and neocolonialism. Significant theoretical influences in understanding gender and sport have also emerged in cultural studies and in work guided by the writings of Norbert Elias, Pierre Bourdieu, and poststructuralist theorists. Contemporary work in the field reflects the move toward critical analyses of the complex relationships between and within groups of women and men in sport. Current scholarship examines the ways in which gender relations are produced, reproduced, challenged, and transformed in and through sporting practices. Three key themes have driven debates about gender and sport since the 1970s. First, leading scholars in the sociology of sport have highlighted that throughout history, sporting practices inculcated behaviors and values defined as male, manly, and masculine. Second, issues surrounding the body, physicality, and sexuality have been brought to the fore in understanding gender relations in sport. Third, it is emphasized that both women and men reinforce and challenge dominant gender ideology in sport in various ways.