Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

On Your Mark, Get Set, Gender, Emilia Vella

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Women in sport is a territory that is seldom included in politics, yet “woman,” as an identity, is one that comes with political meaning. This thesis will be discussing the inadvertent politicality of women in sport, and the legislation, as well as systems that declare the identity as so.

Women In The 2020 Olympic And Paralympic Games: An Analysis Of Participation, Leadership, And Media Coverage, Emily J. Houghton, Lindsay Pieper, Maureen Smith

Human Performance Department Publications

The published report provides the most accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date examination of the participation trends among female Olympic and Paralympic athletes and the hiring trends of Olympic and Paralympic governing bodies with respect to the number of women who hold leadership positions in these organizations. It is intended to provide governing bodies, athletes, and policymakers at the national and international level with new and accurate information with an eye toward making the Olympic and Paralympic movement equitable for all.

Here we provide an evidence-based look at what is known about women’s leadership and participation in the Toyko 2020 Olympic and …

The Expression Of The Hijab In American Sports Culture, Nicholas Duca

Sacred Heart University Scholar

Many sports in the West, specifically in American culture, permit religious symbols and practices. Yet Muslim women have been subject to discrimination, bigotry, and disrespect for wearing or wanting to wear a hijab. This study uses philosophical theory, data, and cultural information to explore the stigma behind Muslim women in America and their participation in the sporting activities that are held here. This piece explains how the hijab’s true meaning is dismantled through American culture and the religious meaning behind it, argues why it should be allowed in sporting events, and suggests ways to prevent discrimination against Muslim women who …

Football Follies: Featuring The Struggles Of Female Soccer Players Internationally, Jen R. Wisniewski

The Downtown Review

Female soccer players face social, economic, and cultural discrimination both in the United States and around the world. Men's soccer teams receive social and financial bonuses while women's teams are left with second-rate fields, equipment, budgets, and options. This paper cites various studies on women's soccer teams in Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Israeli, and even the United States in order to document how female soccer players still face injustice and hardship in order to continue playing the sport they love.

Jill Jackson: Pioneering In The Press Box, Katherine C. Perkins

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Jill Jackson was one of the first female sports journalists and a pioneer voice for women in athletics. Although heretofore overlooked in the history of American sports journalism, the story of her career is an addition not only to the historiography of female sports journalists but also to the broader study of women in the mid-twentieth century. Jackson was admired, a hard worker, from a prominent New Orleans family, and well educated, yet she still was treated unequally in her primary workspace—the press box. Jackson left well-documented story to the Nadine Vorhoff Library and Special Collections at Newcomb College Institute …

Women's Professional Sports: A Case Study On Practices That Could Increase Their Profitability, Danielle H. Mcardle

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Women’s professional sports leagues have often been considered a risky business endeavor. Critics cite low attendance, lack of sponsorships, lack of media rights deals, and numerous other reasons for why women’s professional sports leagues are not profitable. In analyzing the current landscape of women’s professional sport leagues, this paper uses a case study approach to develop a strategy that will highlight lessons learned from past women’s professional sports leagues, current professional sports leagues, sponsorship agreements, fans, social, digital, and mobile marketing strategies, and management practices to show how the business of women’s sports could be made into a more profitable …

Gender Lessons On The Fields Of Contemporary Japan: The Female Athlete In Coaching Discourses, Elise M. Edwards

Elise M. Edwards

Dr. Edwards' contribution to : Kelly, William W., and Atsuo Sugimoto. 2007. This Sporting Life : Sports and Body Culture in Modern Japan. Yale CEAS occasional publications, v. 1; Yale CEAS occasional publications, v. 1. New Haven, Conn.: Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University.

Running Through Gender: Exploring The Effects Of Hegemonic Masculinity And Femininity On Gettysburg Cross Country Athletes, Olivia D. Powell

Student Publications

The general consensus regarding athletic participation is that it is beneficial to a person’s overall well being. The Women’s Sports Foundation states that girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem, lower levels of depression, a more positive body image, and experience higher states of psychological well-being than girls and women who do not play sports. In fact, girls who play sports are more likely to get better grades in school, and are more likely to graduate than girls who do not play sports.1 These statements are circulated as being universal truths. Despite many studies …

Governing Bodies: Caster Semenya And The Rhetorical Management Of Sex And Gender Ambiguity In Professional Athletics, Samuel Robert Evans

English Theses & Dissertations

Sport has long been thought of as an "opiate for the masses," where a collective can forget about social, political, racial, or economic differences and unify to compete in the same space or root for a common team (Eitzen and Sage 202). Scholarship in sports communication, sports rhetoric, and sports sociology, however, has shown that this view of sport as an apolitical cultural institution separate from impactful political debate is oversimplified. Rather, sports are key sites in which beliefs about gender, race, class, and politics are made manifest.

This dissertation uses the case of Caster Semenya, a female South African …

Signs Of Wildness: Codes Of The “Primitive” In Masculine Commodity Culture, Matthew P. Ferrari

Doctoral Dissertations

This project broadly examines articulations of the “primitive” emerging from various sites of popular cultural production, considering their operation within the wider “semioscape”– defined by Thurlow and Aiello (2007) as “the globalizing circulation of symbols, sign-systems, and meaning-making practices.” Taking my lead from Kurusawa (2002, 2004), Torgovnik (1991, 1998), Chow (1995), and Di Leonardo (1998), who have demonstrated the importance of the “primitive” as an interpretive discourse, I add to this body of thought by extending its scope into the realm of popular media and cultural production, examining cases within film, television, advertising, sports, and associated lifestyle commodities. I pose …

The Post Title Ix Portrayal Of Female Athletes In The Media, Kelsey Mcdonald

Honors Theses

This thesis looks to elaborate on recent studies done by Michael Messner, Cheryl Cooky, Robin H. Hextrum and other scholars regarding the exclusion and misrepresentation of female athletes and women’s sport in the media since the enactment of Title IX in 1972. This thesis provides an overview of the history of Title IX, a detailed analysis of the ways which female athletes are portrayed in the media and trends that have occurred based on the coverage women’s sports have received since 1972. The research included and data collected for this thesis are based on ESPN’s SportsCenter and the headlines on …

The Heart Of The Game: Putting Race And Educational Equity At The Center Of Title Ix, Deborah L. Brake, Verna L. Williams

Articles

This article examines how race and educational equity issues shape women's sports experiences, building upon the narrative of Darnellia Russell, a high school basketball player profiled in the documentary The Heart of the Game. Darnellia is a star player who, because of an unintended pregnancy, has to fight to play the game she loves.

This girl's story provides a unique and underutilized lens through which to examine gender and athletics, as well as evaluate the legal framework for gender equality in sport. In focusing on this narrative, we seek to give voice to black female athletes and to express their …

Gender Lessons On The Fields Of Contemporary Japan: The Female Athlete In Coaching Discourses, Elise M. Edwards

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Dr. Edwards' contribution to : Kelly, William W., and Atsuo Sugimoto. 2007. This Sporting Life : Sports and Body Culture in Modern Japan. Yale CEAS occasional publications, v. 1; Yale CEAS occasional publications, v. 1. New Haven, Conn.: Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University.

Title Ix As Pragmatic Feminism, Deborah Brake

Articles

This paper uses Title IX as a vehicle for exploring the potential benefits of pragmatism for feminist legal theory. Title IX is unusual in antidiscrimination law for its eclectic approach to theory, drawing from liberal feminism, substantive equality, antisubordination and different voice models of equality at various points in the law's approach to gender equality in sports. This paper argues that Title IX, as a pragmatic approach to theory, provides a promising example of how feminist legal theory can draw from pragmatism to navigate the double-bind and the backlash.

Following an introduction in Part I, Part II of this Article …

Marketing Sports To Women, Jennifer A. Sloan

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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