A feminist poststructuralist examination into the President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Awards Program

Abstract

The purpose of this viewpoint is to systematically synthesise the intersection of research that focuses on poststructuralism as related to a physical education discourse (namely President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Awards Program). A feminist poststructuralist framework will be used to investigate the ways in which the hegemonic design of norm‐referenced youth fitness tests influence students’ gendering of the body through the notion of the normalised body. We propose that the tests and qualifying standards that are markedly different for prepubescent girls and boys fosters a gendered continuum that forces some students into dominant positions, while others are pushed to the margins.

Keywords:

• gender
• fitness testing
• feminism
• poststructuralism
• physical education
• normalised body
• hegemony

Notes

1. Gender configurations imply that femininities and masculinities are not received, but actively and socially constructed (Connell 1996). Masculinity represents and/or requires ‘aggression, independence, rationality, activity, and competition’, whereas femininity represents and/or requires ‘nurturance, dependence, cooperation, intuition, and passitivity’ (Boutilier and SanGiovanni 1983, 153). J. Butler suggested that gender is a performance, that is, ‘Gender is always a doing’ (1999, 33). Therefore, in this viewpoint, the discussion positions gender at the front of the critique of fitness testing because as West and Zimmerman (1987) noted, in order to ‘do gender’ one must behave gender appropriately.

2. The President’s Council on Youth Fitness was later changed to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. The current title is the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

3. The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/challenge (accessed February 11, 2008).