Introduction

The Death of a Female Boxer

“…Third, there is also the view that although media coverage may represent athletes as national heroes or symbols, these representations may still be characterized by the fissures of race, class, gender, and sexuality either singularly or in combination through their intersection, which has been shown in the case of British athletes Kelly Holmes (Hills & Kennedy, 2009) and Paula Radcliffe (Walton, 2010), Australian Kathy Freeman (Elder, Pratt, & Elis, 2006), as well as male athletes Michael Jordan and Ben Johnson (Jackson, Andrews, & Cole, 1998). In this regard, as it relates specifically to gender, it has been found that even where female athletes are celebrated by the media as national heroines and cast in positive images (e.g., strong, powerful, determined, successful), there is still the tendency to subject them to "conventional gendered representational techniques" (Wensing & Bruce, 2003, p. 389) such as feminization, and sexualization, as noted earlier by Rowe et al (1998) and Markula (2009). This is seen further as serving to trivialize and marginalize their achievements as well as female athletes in general (Koh, 2009, pp.…”

Intersections of Gender and National Identity in Sport: A Cultural Sociological Overview

“…Each of these categories produces inequalities, not only separately but also jointly. The intersectionality theory's feminist origins have given it a clear political emphasis on how identity categories sustain inequality (Choo and Ferree ; Markula ; Nash ; Winker and Degele ).…”

“…The Olympic opening ceremony can be viewed as reproducing capitalist interests, the power of socially dominant groups and state authority (Elder et al ; Hogan ). These nationalist patriarchies are, according to Markula (, 12), sustained either by depicting nations as unified, homogenous places that exclude women and ethnic minorities, or by portraying women and ethnic minorities in a form that supports masculine hegemony. Bruce (, 128) echoes this finding and adds that sport media “valorizes elite, able‐bodied, heterosexual, and professional sportsmen, especially those who bring glory to the nation.”…”

“…In line with increasing scholarly attention to intersections between social identities, a growing number of researchers have examined how this gender ideology intersects with national ideology. Their studies demonstrate how the glorification of masculine athletes intersects with nationalism to reproduce nationalistic male dominance (Knoppers and Anthonissen ; Markula ; Vincent and Crossman ; Wensing and Bruce ).…”

Storie ‘vere’ ed eroine dei romanzi. Rappresentare la Somalia in 'Ilaria Alpi. La ragazza che voleva raccontare l’inferno' e 'Non dirmi che hai paura'

“…114 Samia non è un membro qualsiasi della diaspora somala, ma un soggetto che − per citare le parole di Pirkko Markula sulla rappresentazione delle donne nello sport − ha acquisito una '"flexible citizenship" which has resulted from her transnational celebrity status' grazie alla partecipazione alle Olimpiadi. 115 Per questa ragione, la giovane atleta avrebbe potuto 'prendere un volo turistico da Mogadiscio per l'Italia per 450 Euro o da Addis Abeba per l'Italia per 800 Euro', oppure richiedere 'un permesso umanitario'. 116 Non sono interessato ad analizzare in questo contesto i possibili interrogativi sollevati dalla ricostruzione mediatica della storia di Samia, quanto a mostrare come questi interrogativi creino incongruenze narrative in Non dirmi che hai paura.…”