Women in sport – gender relations and future perspectives1

“Coaching soccer is a man’s job!” – The influence of gender stereotypes on structures for recruiting female coaches to soccer clubs

“…A constructivist approach considers gender and subsequent gender differences to be social constructions that are institutionally anchored in continually performed and internalised interactions. This suggests that gender differences are not natural but acquired and enacted, and also that they vary according to the particular social and gender order (e.g., Pfister, 2010;Wetterer, 2006). Thus gender is a construct with profound relevance to the social standards and structures that influence the order of all areas of life, e.g.…”

“…Sport is an action system with a focus on physical abilities, where gender can easily be maintained as a pattern of social order, since gender-specific attributes can be ascribed to biological differences between males and females (e.g., Hargreaves 1994;Pfister, 2010;Schell & Rodriquez, 2000;Theberge, 1993;. Even today, certain types of sport construct and demonstrate masculinity.…”

Strong, active women: (Re)doing rural femininity through equestrian sport and leisure

“…Although men are also constrained by restrictive gender norms within sport, and Connell's (1987) concept of hegemonic masculinity has been used to illustrate many of the ways in which involvement in sport can be damaging for some men (e.g. Silva et al, 2012), due to wider gender power relations that position women and femininities as complementary yet subordinate to men and masculinities (Schippers, 2007), women's position within sport is tenuous and acceptance of female athleticism remains limited and conditional (Pfister, 2010). Many women seek to reduce the perceived incompatibility between their sporting abilities and their feminine identities by adopting conventional feminine appearances, by highlighting their involvement in heterosexual relationships and their abilities to still perform feminine roles as care-givers, both in the family and in sports worlds.…”

“…Both of these social worlds are characterised by relatively traditional, normative gender regimes in which men and women, masculinity and femininity, are clearly differentiated and hierarchically positioned. I suggest that both rural communities and the institution of sport/physical recreation can be considered 'contested terrains' (Tagg, 2008) because, although historically both represent masculinised spaces in which females and femininities have been marginalised, both are also spaces experiencing change and uncertainty in relation to these long-established conventional gender relations (Bock, 2006;Pfister, 2010). In this section I briefly introduce some of the gender nuances that underpin these social worlds, and consider how this may impact on the experiences of those involved in equestrianism.…”

The lived experience of sex-integrated sport and the construction of athlete identity within the Olympic and Paralympic equestrian disciplines

“…Bodies and physical differences are indeed at the very centre of sport since it is based on a system which systematically reveals differences and establishes a ranking based on the individual's performance (Pfister 2010). Discussions on sport and gender are often focused on the physicality or Pre-publication version of: de Haan, D., The lived experience of sexintegrated sport and the construction of athlete identity within Olympic and Paralympic equestrian disciplines.…”