Week 11 - Gender, sexuality, and movement cultures

Question 1

Why study?

Answer 1

Fairness and equity issues:

-Sport participation patterns (girls and women)

• Inequities: participation opportunities,
  coaching/admin jobs, financial support for athletes
• How to improve these inequities?

Question 2

Gender and sport

Answer 2

Gender ideology in sports :

• Is produced and reproduced
• Can constrain people’s lives
• Can undermine equity

What changes are needed to achieve gender equity and enhance access to sports participation?

Question 3

Barriers of Gender and sport

Answer 3

Equity in participation can be difficult to
achieve because of two types of interrelated barriers. To be more specific

• 1) ideological:
• 2) structural:

Question 4

Key concepts:

Answer 4

1) Sex
* biological differences between males and females

• maleness & femaleness: but there is also a spectrum/range

2) Gender

• people can identify with their biological sex, or have a different self-
  conception
• an idea that has been developed and modified over time in order to classify certain types of behaviours
• social definition of what masculinity & femininity is or should be
• expresses expectations for “proper” sports participation

Question 5

Gender and Roles

Answer 5

Traits and behaviours are often considered to be innately male or innately female

• Sociologists argue that these are less biologically determined and more socially constructed
• Socialization

Question 6

Diagram: Social construction of the gendered individual

Answer 6

Everything relates back to experiences, identities and bodies

-Ideological formations (values, beliefs, ideas)

• Cultural texts (media forms, content)
• Institutional structures (rules, codes, organization)
  ~ shape and reinforce gender ideologies
• Cultural practises (acts, performances and routines)
  ~ express norms or cultural texts and institutionalize structures thereby reproducing ideologies

Question 7

Social Construction of the gendered individual

Answer 7

“People act in ways that perpetuate the gendered institutions that they have
learned” (Pitter et al. 2024, p. 94)

• Such as through participation in sports and physical activity
• Individual is “produced” by society (is a product of their society) but also reproduces gender expectations/norms
  through their actions
• Active bodies shape, and are shaped by, their social context

Question 8

Masculinity and Femininity

Answer 8

The images, ideas and symbols
traditionally defined as belonging
to the male or female gender

Question 9

Gender order

Answer 9

Social system characterized by unequal power relations

• struggle between different masculinities (specifically, certain
  expressions of masculinity) and femininities
• options for participation:
  -who gets to play ?
• how do they get to play ?
• under what conditions can they play ?

How might ideas of masculinity and femininity factor in these decisions ?

-idealized forms of femininity and masculinity as expressed in respective
idealized forms of physical activity for each gender

Question 10

Gender roles and sport

Answer 10

Socially conditioned behavior

• How can sports participation for boys and girls be impacted by gender ideology?
• Examples: beliefs that girls are hardwired for aesthetic sports and boys are hardwired for aggressive sports