ABSTRACT
The female sporting body has long been a site of public discussion and debate. This is perhaps not surprising when we look to the history of sport and recall that men designed sports for men, often with the explicit purpose of teaching boys how to become a particular type of man (Aitchison, 2007; Burstyn, 1999). Thus, women’s participation – particularly in those sports that celebrate traditionally defined masculine traits and values such as physical contact, aggression, dominance, courage, risk-taking and the acceptance (even glorification) of pain and injury – poses a serious threat to the long-held relationship between sport (especially male team sports) and masculinity. Over the past half-century, women have forged new spaces in sports, demonstrating exceptionally high levels of skill and commitment in an ever-growing list of sporting pursuits ranging from mountain climbing, to ice hockey, to boxing. Yet almost 40 years of research reveals various attempts by the media to undermine women’s sporting participation, and thus maintain the supposedly ‘natural’ relationship between sport and masculinity (see Bruce, 2015).
