Changing hegemonic masculinities in men's netball

Abstract

This article discuses men's participation in netball, a sport originally designed to reflect and reinforce late Victorian ideals of femininity. The particular focus is seven players from the New Zealand province of Otago – a relatively conservative and predominantly Pākehā (New Zealand European) part of the country – and their experiences competing at various national men's netball championships. Men's netball appears to have developed independently in each of New Zealand's two main islands, with predominantly machismo assumptions in the South Island and significant gay and transgender influences in the North Island. While the early Otago players struggled to come to terms with the more diverse northern gender performances, they seem to have made some progress. However the opposite influences have also projected northwards, and an uneasy decision has been made that nationally men's netball should put aside its queer history and present itself as just another mainstream, hegemonic masculine, sport.

Notes

^1.Broomhall ‘A Feminist Analysis of the Development’, 2.

^2.Andrew ‘A Girl's Game’, 14.

^3.Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport.

^4.Nauright ‘Netball, Media Representation of Women and Crisis’, 52.

^5.Nauright and Broomhall, ‘A Woman's Game’, 388.

^6.Nauright ‘Netball, Media Representation of Women and Crisis’, 48.

^7.Hawes and Barker, Court in the Spotlight, 20.

^8. Archer cited in Broomhall, ‘A Feminist Analysis of the Development’, 29.

^9.Roen ‘Transgender Theory and Embodiment’, 253.

^10.Fontana and Frey ‘The Interview’.

^11.Twenge ‘Changes in Masculine and Feminine Traits Over Time’.

^12.Connell, Gender, 46.

^13.Connell, Masculinities, 35.

^14.Connell, Gender.

^15. Ibid., 5.

^16. Ibid.

^17.Beynon, Masculinities and Culture, 6.

^18. Ibid., 2.

^19.Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks.

^20.Connell, Masculinities, 37.

^21. Ibid., 37.

^22.Connell, Gender.

^23.Connell, Gender, 58. See also McKinnon ‘Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State’.

^24.Connell, Gender. See also Holter ‘Family Theory Reconsidered’.

^25.Hochschild, The Managed Heart.

^26.Thompson, Mother's Taxi, 6.

^27.Connell, Gender, 65.

^28.Connell, Masculinities.

^29.Connell, Gender, 67.

^30.LorberParadoxes of Gender.

^31.Andrew ‘A Girl's Game’.

^32.Broomhall ‘A Feminist Analysis of the Development’.

^33.Andrew ‘A Girl's Game’, 70.

^34. Ibid.

^35.Connell, Gender.

^36.Hill, ‘Fitting Multiculturalism into Biculturalism’, 294.

^37.Tagg, ‘‘Dress as a Man’’.

^38.Holter ‘Family Theory Reconsidered’.

^39.Thompson, Mother's Taxi.

^40.Connell, Gender.

^41.Gee, ‘Bending the Codes of Masculinity’.

^42.Coston and Kimmel ‘Seeing Privilege Where it Isn't’, 97.

^43. See Meikle ‘There's no Skirting the Fact’, 29.

^44. See Broomhall ‘A Feminist Analysis of the Development’, 74.

^45. See Roxburgh ‘Netball: Men Battle in a Female Domain’.

^46.Gee and Jackson ‘Leisure Corporations, Beer Brand Culture’, 84.

^47.Roen ‘Transgender Theory and Embodiment’, 256.

^48. Besnier, quoted in Roen ‘Transgender Theory and Embodiment’, 258.

^49.Roen ‘Transgender Theory and Embodiment’, 258.

^50. Ibid.