Participation Impacts of Gender
Washington is a Contact Sport: Political Debate as Sports Spectacle
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Adam Cohen
The devaluation of femininity and exclusion of women in American politics and sports culture are topics that have separately been given much attention in gender studies and related fields. A topic that has not yet been explored is the practice of watching televised political debates as sport. This is a growing phenomena since the 2004 United States presidential election that merges the gendered practices in both politics and sports. This tradition frames the consumption of politics through the lens of the sport-media spectacle. Building off Judith Butler’s notion of “citation with a difference,” I argue that sport spectacle functions as a citation throughout political discourse, such that U.S. political debate is performed as sport spectacle in consumer culture. Records from the 2004-2016 presidential debates on Reddit and Yelp, as well as advertisements in online magazines, reveal how these elections were as commodified as sport-media spectacles. In this paper, I analyze how bars owners, bartenders, and their attendants—mimic the male-dominated world of sports, which in turn codify the performance of citizenship for masculine consumption. Through several examinations of “female masculinities,” Jack/Judith Halberstam confronts the spaces in which “gender difference simply does not work right now.” Ultimately, I argue that as political and sports spectators, women often negotiate their presence in traditional male-dominated spaces by performing masculine behaviors. In this paper, I develop a deeper understanding of how sports bars spatialize the consumption of politics, commodifying it as a ritual that has long been associated with constructions of masculinity.
Making Waves: Women Athletes as Creators of Waves of Feminisms
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elizabeth Wilkinson
Why doesn't Ms. Magazine have a sports column? Why doesn’t every Women and Gender Studies textbook have at least one chapter highlighting athletes? They should. Women in sports push back against the policing of their bodies – what they look like, what they wear, what they can do, where they can be. This paper argues that each step toward a more gender-just society happened within and because of bold actions by women playing sports. Athletes create the waves of feminist change. From the late 1800s through today, sportswomen created reform: they shucked off their corsets; left the domestic sphere; became political; fought for pay equity; called out sexual harassment; fought gender testing. Swimmers and cyclists produce the first wave; Title IX, tennis, crew, and marathon-ing give us the second; Scurry / Chastain, Women's Flat Track Roller Derby, and the Williams sisters produce the third wave; and USA gymnasts, Ibtihaj Muhammad, and Caster Semenya are ushering in the fourth. We owe reform to athletes who redefine the very definition of woman and create the political forward motion that brings about social change. Some scholars have flirted with the idea that sport was (and is) a vehicle for women’s rights. In 1994, Theberge and Birrell wrote, “Developments in sport are inseparable from conditions in the wider society, so that changes in women’s relationship to sport may signal or even influence transformation in women’s position in society at large” (167). This paper challenges “or even influence” to assert that women athletes transform society.
Socio-political Change and the Evolution of the First Mexican Professional Football Women’s League, 2017-2018
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel Añorve
The summer of 2017 witnessed the launch of Liga Femenil MX (LFMX). This paper analyzes the evolution of the first professional women’s football league during its first three tournaments. Two dimensions of the game, the on-field actors and the organizational-administrative dimension, help to analyze change and continuity within LMXF as well as its evolutionary perspectives. As a result of the insufficient academic literature, the overwhelming majority of information is obtained from journalistic sources, as well as from direct semi-structured interviews with the teams’ administrative staff. The main objective is to assess whether the broader advancement of women in sports domains other than football has translated into an effective advancement of women’s professional football. The results confirm that the differences with the men’s league are diminishing; however, rather than Federación Mexicana de Futbol (FMF) designing specific policies fostering a greater women’s involvement in different positions within Mexican football, it is the nonfootball women’s advancement within the broader Mexican society as well as international commitments that may explain the growing participation of women in Mexican football. Based on the results, four scenarios of evolution or retrogression are outlined.
Girlie Girls Aren’t “Real” Athletes: A Critical Examination of Girls’ Experiences of Aesthetic Sports within a Post-Feminist Masquerade
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dawn Trussell, Laura Kovac
Using a feminist social constructivist lens, the purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of adolescent females currently participating in aesthetic sports. Specifically, this study sought to critically examine the ways in which the new feminine ideal and a post-feminist girlhood culture shaped the girls’ experiences. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach a purposive sample of eight girls, between the ages of 12-15, participated in the study. Three major themes that best reflect the interpretation of the participants experiences emerged: Negotiating higher social status in the school environment, framing success through gendered and neoliberal discourses, and, constructing the ideal image. Moreover, the major themes resulted in the culmination of experiences leading to the core theme “Falling short of the neoliberal ideal.” The study highlights the need for educators and sport practitioners to advocate for a diversity of gender expression.
