Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This paper deals with the etymology and origin of the term ‘deviant body’ as a social construct and looks at how women athletes with said bodies are understood within the domain of “Gender and Sport.” Theorizations on Gender have taken a huge leap in understanding and exploring the multiple identities it can create through the politics of the body. Looking at it through the angle of sports helps us to navigate through the politics that these “gendered bodies” create, where established identities have to be heteronormative in order to be allowed to compete at any level. Considering the body as an investigation ground, this paper looks at the lives of select women athletes like Pinky Pramanik, Santhi Soundarajan and Caster Semenya to analyse how the heteronormativity is enabling or disabling their athletic performances. By undertaking a review of the existing theoretical frameworks on the construction of gender and identity (Butler (1993), Messner (2007)), I attempt to place these women athletes with “deviant bodies” against the backdrop of contemporary “apologetic” practices that are devised to achieve acceptance in the current sporting culture. The paper further explores the Foucauldian concept of ‘disciplined body’ to understand how women’s sport is a location wherein the politics of identity, resistance and sexuality are performed. It further explores how practices of “gender testing” further reiterate the patriarchal ideology of a “feminine sporting image.” This paper will serve as a necessary framework to interrogate the disparities in evaluating superlative athletic performances between men and women.