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: For example, much of the initial work on gender and sport highlighted inequities but did not explicitly deal with how the prevailing organization of sports privileged the physical experiences of boys and men. Subsequent critical analyses revealed that research focused on differences between males and females generally supported traditional claims about the biological inferiority of females and the legitimacy of efforts to control women’s sports participation. Such research, it was argued, did not deal with the underlying structural and cultural sources of gender inequality. More recent scholarship has attempted to resolve the shortcomings of early research and theory by considering difference and diversity between and within groups of women, and by theoretical and methodological approaches that consider women as active agents in the construction and reconstruction of their sporting experiences. There is no single feminist movement or theory that has informed current scholarly work on gender and sport. 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.