Challenging the gender binary? Male basketball practice players' views of female athletes and women's sports

Fink, Janet; LaVoi, Nicole M.; Newhall, Kristine E.

doi:10.4324/9781315228662-14

Cited by 6 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, there are a variety of factors that impact performance, and genetic factors within gender-segregated competition are also potentially unfair; thus, it is unlikely everyone competes on an equal playing field (Bianchi, 2017). Fink et al (2016) have previously argued that sport performance should be looked at as a continuum from low to high standard that transcends the boundaries of gender; in other words, many women can outperform men, but as most sport is gender-segregated, this is rarely seen.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking beyond the binary: Barriers to trans* participation in university sport

Phipps

2019

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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Sport is a significant part of university life in the UK, where students may try new sports for the first time. Research also demonstrates links between sport participation and mental health and employment prospects. Despite the positive aspects of university sports, by mimicking wider sport practices, they may also be environments that exclude non-normative bodies, including those who are trans*. The experiences of trans* people in sport is still a limited research area, with existing studies suggesting a range of exclusionary practices are evident. However, it is currently unclear to what extent these practices are replicated in the university sport environment across institutions in the UK. As part of a broader study on LGBT+ inclusion in UK university sport, focus groups with student union officers and LGBT+ students were conducted, with one student identifying as trans*. Data derived from the trans* student, alongside the viewpoints of officers, suggests further action can be taken to ensure university sport is inclusive to all, particularly in regard to the reliance on wider binary gender structures in sport, which are also evident in the British Universities and Colleges Sport transgender policy. This research may be useful for student unions, university sport clubs and other bodies in control of sport provision to increase inclusion for all.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking beyond the binary: Barriers to trans* participation in university sport

Phipps

2019

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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“…However, the nature of gender integration is significant and the culture in which it occurs impacts its effectiveness in combating sexism (Channon et al, 2016). Highlighting the challenges of gender-integrative practices, Fink et al (2016) interviewed 10 male practice players for an elite National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division-I women's basketball team at a university in the United States. These 10 male practice players were often used as 'scouts' for the team, meaning that the coach would review video on an opponent and tell the practice player some specific tendencies of that player, and the male practice player would simulate those tendencies in practice to prepare the women's basketball team.…”

Section: Gender Integration and Continued Gender-binary Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These 10 male practice players were often used as 'scouts' for the team, meaning that the coach would review video on an opponent and tell the practice player some specific tendencies of that player, and the male practice player would simulate those tendencies in practice to prepare the women's basketball team. Fink et al (2016) found that the male practice players acknowledged the sport continuum, and many of these men admitted that they had positively changed their perspectives of female basketball players due to regularly competing with and against the women's team. Yet these men also reinforced traditional gender stereotypes through gender-essentialist narratives, re-gendering women athletes by making comments that these women 'don't play like girls, like you think a girl would play' (Fink et al, 2016(Fink et al, : 1325.…”

Section: Gender Integration and Continued Gender-binary Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fink et al (2016) found that the male practice players acknowledged the sport continuum, and many of these men admitted that they had positively changed their perspectives of female basketball players due to regularly competing with and against the women's team. Yet these men also reinforced traditional gender stereotypes through gender-essentialist narratives, re-gendering women athletes by making comments that these women 'don't play like girls, like you think a girl would play' (Fink et al, 2016(Fink et al, : 1325. Kane (1995) described this language for describing female athletes as 'the deviant mutant', in which the player being discussed is beyond the realm of conceivable feminine athletic ability.…”

Section: Gender Integration and Continued Gender-binary Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most problematic perspectives came from the men's basketball team (see also Fink et al, 2016), who had no instances of gender-collaborative training. When discussing gender-collaborative training sessions with the male basketball players, many did not seem to think there was any benefit to playing with the women because of height differences.…”

Section: Gender-collaborative Sports Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Gender-collaborative training in elite university sport: Challenging gender essentialism through integrated training in gender-segregated sports

Ogilvie

McCormack

2020

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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Competitive teamsport at university level is predominantly segregated by gender in many western countries, despite concerns that gender segregation in sport can perpetuate sexism and gender inequality. While policies and activities seek to challenge sexism and gender inequality, the use of gender collaboration within a gender-segregated system as a method to achieve this has received little attention. In this article, we draw on a year-long ethnography of elite sport and 48 in-depth interviews with elite male and female athletes at a British university to explore the impact of various forms of gender mixing during training, which we call ‘gender-collaborative training’. While men’s and women’s teams competing against each other in practice matches resulted in gender-essentialist narratives attributing difference to biology, gender-integrated practices and workouts provided opportunities for men and women to train together without the gendered sport-specific associations that can reproduce sexism. We call for gender-collaborative training to be adopted by gender-segregated teams, and suggest that where there is resistance to any integration, teams start with mixed physical workouts and progress to mixed sport-specific training and then mixed competitive training.

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“We All Play Pretty Much the Same, Except. . .”: Gender-Integrated Quidditch and the Persistence of Essentialist Ideology

Allison

Love

2021

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

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We use the case of a recreational college Quidditch class to examine the consequences of gender-integrated sport for gender essentialist ideology. Data include ethnographic observations and course journal data from 23 first-year undergraduates playing Quidditch over four months. While a gender-integrated sport provided numerous opportunities for participants to witness similarities in performance among men and women, we found only limited challenge to gender essentialist ideas. Despite rules intended to reduce competitiveness and physical contact, play became increasingly aggressive over time, particularly among men, and an emergent positional segregation located women in less central defensive positions. Students frequently understood these trends as the “natural” result of gender difference. Ultimately, participants’ experiences in Quidditch often drew on and solidified ideas about women’s athletic inferiority to men.

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Challenging the gender binary? Male basketball practice players' views of female athletes and women's sports

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Thinking beyond the binary: Barriers to trans* participation in university sport

Thinking beyond the binary: Barriers to trans* participation in university sport

Gender-collaborative training in elite university sport: Challenging gender essentialism through integrated training in gender-segregated sports

“We All Play Pretty Much the Same, Except. . .”: Gender-Integrated Quidditch and the Persistence of Essentialist Ideology

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