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Abstract
Studies have shown that alternative sports have been a site for new constructions of masculinity. Rather than forming a physically dominating hegemonic masculinity that limits female involvement, alternative masculinities that allow for egalitarianism of participation may be created in these newer, lifestyle sports. The current study analysed the images and discourses in issues, published post-2000, of a technology-focused mountain-bike magazine. The examination revealed how this magazine represents the gendered identities being created through consumption practices. Male members of the sport are the main focus of this magazine resulting in very little space being provided to female mountain bikers. Furthermore, mountain biking is portrayed as a male-domain whereby mountain-biking products are to be developed for and used by men. Along with its description of the male consumption of mountain-biking equipment, this magazine creates a narrow picture of masculinity similar to the physically dominant form found in mainstream sport. This paper provides a discussion of the possible consequences of such a narrow portrayal of masculinity, including marginalization of females and risk-taking of males. It does, however, note a need for further research into this largely under-examined lifestyle sport.
Notes
1 CitationConnell, Masculinities, 54.
2 CitationYoung, White and McTeer, ‘Body Talk’, 176.
3 CitationRichman and Shaffer, ‘If You Let Me Play Sports’; CitationWheaton and Tomlinson, ‘Changing Gender Order’.
4 CitationWhitson, ‘Embodiment of Gender’, 363.
5 CitationRinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’.
6 CitationBryson, ‘Women in Sport’; CitationMessner, Power at Play; CitationSabo and Panepinto, ‘Football Ritual’.
7 CitationHumphreys, ‘Selling Out Snowboarding’; CitationWheaton and Tomlinson, ‘Changing Gender Order’.
8 Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’.
9 CitationConnell, Gender and Power.
10 CitationAnderson, ‘Snowboarding’; CitationBeal, ‘Alternative Masculinity’; Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’; Wheaton, ‘New Lads’; Wheaton and Tomlinson, ‘Changing Gender Order’; CitationYoung, ‘Being the Alternative’.
11 CitationBeal, Subculture of Skateboarding, 5.
12 Beal, ‘Alternative Masculinity’.
13 Young, ‘Being the Alternative’.
14 Wheaton, ‘New Lads’, 446.
15 Young, ‘Being the Alternative’, 80.
16 Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’.
17 CitationRinehart, ‘Inside of the Outside’; Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’.
18 CitationRinehart, ‘Inside of the Outside’; Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’
19 CitationPedersen and Kelly, ‘ESPN X Games’.
20 Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’.
21 Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’
22 Anderson, ‘Snowboarding’.
23 CitationWheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’.
24 CitationHenderson, ‘A Shifting Line Up’, 326.
25 CitationHenderson, ‘A Shifting Line Up’, 319.
26 Another academic interpretation of mountain biking is provided by CitationEassom, ‘Mountain Biking Madness’, whereby he briefly notes the content of British mountain biking magazines in the early 1990s. Eassom observed that mountain-biking magazines at this time focused on technical tips and the latest biking components and believes that the focus of these magazines was an important part of shaping the sport of mountain biking.
27 CitationTaysom, ‘Reading Mountain Bikes’.
28 Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’.
29 CitationHuybers, ‘Risk Taking’.
30 CitationAmici Design, Fat Tire; CitationCrowther, Ultimate Mountain Bike Book.
31 Amici Design, Fat Tire.
32 Rosen, ‘Social Construction’.
33 CitationMidol and Broyer, ‘Towards an Anthropological Analysis’.
34 Amici Design, Fat Tire; CitationCunningham, ‘Redefining the Mountain Bike’; CitationEller, ‘Next Generation’; CitationWorland, Mountain Bike Book.
35 Amici Design, Fat Tire; Eller, ‘Next Generation’.
36 CitationRose, Visual Methodologies.
37 Rose, Visual Methodologies, 136.
38 Rose, Visual Methodologies, 136
39 CitationDuncan et al., ‘Gender Stereotyping’.
40 Amici Design, Fat Tire; Crowther, Ultimate Mountain Bike Book; Worland, Mountain Bike Book; CitationRosen, ‘Social Construction’; Eassom, ‘Mountain Biking Madness’.
41 Rosen, ‘Social Construction’, 493.
42 CitationHarvey, Condition of Postmodernity.
43 Rosen, ‘Social Construction’.
44 Amici Design, Fat Tire; Eller, ‘Next Generation’.
45 It is interesting to note that the marketing of bicycles to women has had a long history beginning in the mid-1880s, with this earlier history resulting in women finding greater freedom. It was the introduction of the ‘safety’ bicycle and its design (i.e., two equal-sized wheels with pneumatic rubber tires) that allowed women to be able to ride this newer contraption. This technology gave the women, at least the ones who were able to afford a bicycle, a new sense of freedom. Women now enjoyed an added means to exercise, acquired a new source of entertainment and transportation, and saw a transformation in styles of dress from the restrictive long skirts to shorter skirts, split skirts and the controversial bloomers. See for example CitationHall, ‘Creators of the Lost’.
46 Amici Design, Fat Tire; Crowther, Ultimate Mountain Bike Book; Worland, Mountain Bike Book; CitationHope, Mountain Biking; CitationVan der Plas and Kelly, Original Mountain Bike Book.
47 Amici Design, Fat Tire.
48 CitationBarton, ‘Good Gear’.
49 CitationBennett and Lachowetz, ‘Marketing to Lifestyles’.
50 Amici Design, Fat Tire; Eller, ‘Next Generation’.
51 Amici Design, Fat Tire; Cunningham, ‘Redefining the Mountain Bike’.
52 CitationCunningham, ‘Freeriding and the Future’; Eller, ‘Next Generation’.
53 International Mountain Biking Association, ‘IMBA Freeriding Position’, http://www.imba.com/resources/freeriding/imba_position.html.
54 Cunningham, ‘Freeriding and the Future’.
55 Barton, ‘Good Gear’; CitationCunningham, ‘Specialized Debuts’.
56 CitationMcIlvain, ‘Trek Fuels Up’.
57 Personal communication with Robb Mesecher on 20 February 2009.
58 CitationMcIlvain, ‘The Rich, the Fit’; CitationMcIlvain, ‘And the Survey Says’. Personal communication with Robb Mesecher on 20 February 2009.
59 CitationMcIlvain, ‘Free Thinking’.
60 Our discussion with Mesecher was interesting, however, he did note that he had not really thought about the issues we were inquiring about. Following the conversation with Mesecher, we felt that we still did not have a clear reason as to why there were a limited number of female-specific products reviewed and advertised. It should be noted that the we tried contacting MBA's publisher, Roland Hinz, editor, Jim McIlvain, and editor-at-large, Richard Cunningham, for further clarification; however, after numerous attempts at contacting these individuals, we did not receive any replies.
61 Taysom, ‘Reading Mountain Bikes’.
62 CitationCunningham, ‘Happy Trails’, 12.
63 Cunningham, ‘Freeriding and the Future’; Cunningham, ‘Happy Trails’.
64 Taysom, ‘Reading Mountain Bikes’.
65 Cunningham, ‘Happy Trails’, 12.
66 This trend for mountain biking to take on a more extreme nature as well as introduce mainstream-sport values including a competitive format and an emphasis on physicality, aggression and danger has been documented in other studies of alternative sports (see, for example, CitationMessner, Dunbar and Hunt, ‘Televised Sports’; and Young, ‘Being the Alternative’). These studies found these practices to be a means in which males in alternative sports are able to reinforce notions of gender difference and masculine hegemony, particularly a hegemony that is characterized by combative competition, aggression, strength, power, courage and toughness. Rinehart, in‘“Babes” and Boards’, suggests that this practice is a result of co-optation of sports by commercial interests. As the newer, alternative sports are appropriated and commodified by the media, mainstream values are reintroduced and reinforced.
67 Taysom, ‘Reading Mountain Bikes’, 20.
68 Taysom, ‘Reading Mountain Bikes’, 20
69 Henderson, ‘A Shifting Line Up’, 326.
70 Henderson, ‘A Shifting Line Up’, 326, 327.
71 CitationWhite et al., ‘Sport, masculinity’; CitationYoung and White, ‘Researching Sports Injury’.
72 Messner, Dunbar and Hunt, ‘Televised sports’.
73 CitationKimmel and Messner, Men's Lives; White, Young and Mc Teer, ‘Sport, Masculinity’; Young and White, ‘Researching Sports Injury’.
74 Messner, Dunbar and Hunt, ‘Televised Sports’, 389.
75 CitationJansen and Sabo, ‘Sport/War Metaphor’.
76 Messner, Dunbar and Hunt, ‘Televised Sports’.
77 Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’.
78 CitationBryson, ‘Challenges to Male Hegemony’.
79 CitationBryson, ‘Challenges to Male Hegemony’
80 National Sporting Goods Association, ‘2002–2006 Participation by Mean Age’, http://www.nsga.org/public/pages/index.cfm?pageid = 1358.
81 Western Canada Mountain Bike Tourism Association, ‘Sea to Sky Mountain Biking Economic Impact Study’, http://www.mbta.ca/News/?sp = Sea_to_Sky_Economic_Impact_Study.
82 Messner, Dunbar and Hunt, ‘Televised Sports’, 391.
83 Kimmel and Messner, Men's Lives.
84 CitationSabo, ‘Politics of Sports Injury’, 59.
85 Messner, Dunbar and Hunt, ‘Televised Sports’.
86 CitationKim et al., ‘Mountain Biking Injuries’.
87 Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’.
88 Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports, 9.
89 Taysom, ‘Reading Mountain Bikes’.
90 Anderson, ‘Snowboarding’; Rinehart, ‘“Babes” and Boards’; Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’.
91 Beal, ‘Alternative Masculinity’; Wheaton, ‘New Lads’; Young, ‘Being the Alternative’.
92 See for example, Wheaton, ‘New Lads’, in which she found, in windsurfing, a prevalent masculinity, labelled ‘ambivalent masculinity’, that was less exclusive of women.
93 Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’, 158. Wheaton and Beal draw upon Thornton's notion that there is a need to ‘problematize the notion of authenticity’ (CitationThornton, Club Cultures, 9). Their study of the consumption of alternative sport's niche media recognizes that this media along with the commercialization process are ‘key definers’ of what it is to be ‘authentic’ in skateboarding and windsurfing. However, they also recognize that ‘the media and consumer industries’ roles are more complex, contradictory and fluid than simply incorporation and co-optation' and that ‘research needs to examine how cultural commodities provided by these cultural/media industries are made meaningful in specific acts of consumption’.
94 CitationWheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’.
95 CitationWheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’, 296.
96 CitationBeal and Wilson, ‘Chicks Dig Scars’.
97 CitationWheaton, Understanding Life style Sports.
98 CitationWheaton, Understanding Life style Sports, 11.
99 CitationWheaton, Understanding Life style Sports
100 Wheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’, 297.
101 CitationCunningham, ‘Do Real Mountain Bikers’.
102 See, for example, CitationGladden, ‘SMQ Profile/interview’.