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Abstract
The experience of gender identity in relation to exercise and sport participation is discussed in this essay on the basis of interviews with young women in a non-elite basketball team in Norway. We conclude that skills and values previously identified as masculine tend not to be at conflict with general gender scripts for young women. Girls' participation in sports appears not to be accompanied by threatened gender identities or gender battles, but rather by prudent negotiation and expansion of gender scripts. Furthermore, we discuss whether or not sports participation can be seen as progressive for women by empowering the body-subject and counteracting objectifying discourses about the female body.
Notes
[1] This research was founded by the Research Council of Norway
[2] CitationTheberge, ‘Gender and Sport’.
[3] CitationWollebæk et al., Frivillig innsats. Sosial integrasjon, Demokrati og økonomi. In the reports from the National Confederation of Sports Clubs (NIF), the percentage of women has remained relatively stable over the past few years at 38 per cent.
[4] CitationLippe, Endring og motstand mot endring av femininiteter og maskuliniteter i idrett og kroppskultur i Norge 1890–1950.
[5] On 8 March 2003, an article in Oslo's leading conservative newspaper, Aftenposten, addressed this controversy between the Ski Federation and ski-jumping women, and the editor's sympathy was undoubtedly on the side of Annette Sagen and the other ski-jumping women. Thus, the Ski Federation's arguments were demonstrably not compatible with the dominant gender equality ideology.
[6] NIF, Sport and Physical Activity in Norway.
[7] NIF, Annual Report 2003.
[8] CitationFasting, ‘Women and Sport in Norway’.
[9] CitationKrange and Strandbu, Ungdom, idrett og friluftsliv.
[10] , Helse og livsstil blant barn og unge i Norge, and Utviklingstrekk i helse og livsstil blant barn og unge fra Norge, Sverige, Ungarn og Wales.
[11] Fasting, ‘Women and Sport in Norway’.
[12] NIF, Annual Report 2003.
[13] Ibid.
[14] CitationAndersson, ‘Identity Work in Sports’.
[15] CitationHargreaves, Heroines of Sport; CitationHovden, From Rights-Based to Utility-Oriented Equalization.
[16] CitationHargreaves, Heroines of Sport.
[17] Birrell, ‘Feminist Theories for Sport’.
[18] Hargreaves, Sporting Females; Heroines of Sport, Birrell, ‘Feminist Theories for Sport’; CitationHall, Feminism and Sporting Bodies.
[19] CitationConnell, Masculinities; CitationMessner, Power at Play; CitationSabo, Mckay and CitationMessner Masculinities, Gender Relations, and Sport; CitationFundberg, Kom igen, gubbar!.
[20] Hargreaves, Sporting Females; CitationShakib, ‘Female Basketball Participation’.
[21] Shakib, ‘Female Basketball Participation’, 1411.
[22] The Stronger Women get, the more Men Love Football is the title of a book by Mariah Burton Nelson cited in CitationHeywood, Bodymakers.
[23] Nielsen and Rudberg use different terms in Psychological Gender and Modernity. In their terminology, gendered subjectivity is the non-reflexive part, and gender identity is the reflexive part.
[24] CitationStrandbu, ‘Identity, Embodied Culture and Physical Exercise’.
[25] Messner, Power at Play.
[26] CitationWillis, ‘Women in Sport in Ideology’.
[27] Messner, Power at Play, 75.
[28] CitationCash and Pruzinsky, Body Image; CitationStorvoll et al., ‘A Cross-Sectional Study of Changes in Norwegian Adolescents’ Body Image from 1992 to 2002’.
[29] CitationBordo, Unbearable Weight.
[30] CitationBeauvoir, The Second Sex, 308.
[31] Hall, Feminism and Sporting Bodies; Bordo, Unbearable Weight; Young, Throwing like a Girl.
[32] CitationBjerrum Nielsen, ‘Noisy Girls’.
[33] Ibid., 21.
[34] CitationTebelius, Girls’ Involvement in Sport.
[35] The distinction between object and subject is chosen from existentialist philosophy and has been adopted by feminists – often in a rather simplistic version. The point from Sartre and de Beauvoir is that people are both objects and subjects – both immanence and transcendence. According to de Beauvoir, women are not encouraged to develop their subject, and are therefore, more than men, prescribed object positions – but this situation could change.
[36] CitationWalseth and Fasting, ‘Sport as a Means for Integrating Minority Women’.
[37] Holmenkollstafetten is a large relay race held each spring in Oslo, the capital of Norway. For many years women were not allowed to participate. An important moment in Norwegian feminist activism was Gerd von der Lippe's participation in this competition disguised as a man.
[38] Scraton et al., ‘It's Still a Mans Game?’
[39] CitationRail, ‘Physical Contact in Women`s Basketball’.
[40] CitationWichstrøm, Hvem, hva, hvor?; CitationBreivik and CitationVaagbø, Utviklingen i fysisk aktivitet i den norske befolkning 1985–1997.
[41] CitationYoung, Throwing like a Girl, 150.
[42] Ibid, 154
[43] Ibid.
[44] Vaagbø et al., Evaluering av etikk og verdiarbeidet i NIF 1993–2003.
[45] Tebelius, ‘Girls’ Involvement in Sport’.
[46] Young, Throwing like a Girl.
[47] Scraton et al., It's Still a Mans Game?, 108.
[48] ‘Sport’ here refers to ‘competitive sport’. In other words this essay is not in line with what Hargreaves in Sporting Females considers a critical sport feminism – which should challenge the institution of sport.
[49] In a study of high school grades, girls received better average marks than boys did in every subject except physical education. Still, physical education is (obviously and fairly) the only subject in school with different requirements for boys and girls. Published by Norwegian Board of Education (Læringssenteret) at http://www.ls.no/utdanningsstatistikk/statistikk.asp.
[50] Storvoll et al., ‘A Cross-Sectional Study of Changes in Norwegian Adolescents’ Body Image from 1992 to 2002’.
[51] CitationMoi, What is a woman?
[52] Ibid., 296.
[53] Birrell, ‘Feminist Theories for Sport’.
[54] Moi, What is a woman?; CitationPrieur and Moseng, ‘Sorry We Don't Speak Queer’.
[55] Ibid.