Identity and Agency
Conformity to Masculine Norms and Sexual Relationships among US College Athletes
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lorin Mordecai
With heightened attention on sexual assault in college sports, this study seeks to understand the impact of conformity to masculine norms and sexual relationships among college athletes. Using a secondary data-analysis, 795 undergraduate students in the northeast region of the United States completed an anonymous survey that included items from the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI) scale. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to assess the impact of dominance, violence, and success and winning on feelings on sex and relationships while controlling for ethnicity, race, gender, year in school, and type of sport. Preliminary results indicate that college athletes with greater masculine attitudes such as dominance and violence have less appreciation for sex and relationships. Meanwhile college athletes with higher attitudes on success and winning had greater appreciation for sex and relationships. Males were also more likely to have higher acceptance of dominance, violence, and success and winning than females. More research needs to be conducted on the attitudes and behaviors of college athletes as it relates to masculine traits and the possibility of sexual violence. These findings also point to the need for increased training on healthy masculinity and sexual assault prevention in college sports.
Strong is the New Skinny: The Biopolitical Logic(s) of Female Muscularity, Health, and Becoming
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Annie Yaniga
This paper outlines the final results of a two-year ethnographic study of an American CrossFit gym and community. CrossFit is a world-wide sport and fitness brand, with over 13,000 franchised fitness affiliates around the world and an annual open sporting competition: The CrossFit Games. While CrossFit is beginning to become the subject of some ethnographic research, there has yet to be published a long-term in-depth ethnographic study of a CrossFit community and its participants. This study, which includes two years of participant observation, 40 interviews, and a body-idealization survey, reveals three major findings of great significance affecting theories and practices of gender, embodiment, discourses of health, agency, self-care, and community identity, all within the ideological framework of the Biopolitics of late capitalism. Key findings include the following: Female muscularity is greatly encouraged and valorized, within new limits, CrossFit discourses of health align with theories of Healthism and neoliberal values of individual responsibility, and the primary motivation of individual CrossFit participants is the pursuit of meaning-making and purpose through self-realization, a pursuit that is accelerated through the community experience.
