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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Cheerleading And The Gendered Politics Of Sport, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West Jan 2006

Cheerleading And The Gendered Politics Of Sport, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West

Emily E. West

Cheerleading occupies a contested space in American culture and a key point of controversy is whether it ought to be considered a sport. Drawing on interviews with college cheerleaders on coed squads as well as five years of fieldwork in various cheerleading sites, this paper examines the debate over cheerleading and sport in terms of its gender politics. The bid for sport status on the part of cheerleaders revolves around the desire for respect more than official recognition by athletic organizations; cheerleaders recognize the prestige associated with sport, a function of its historic association with hegemonic masculinity, and they claim …


Mediating Citizenship Through The Lens Of Consumerism: Frames In The American Medicare Reform Debates Of 2003-2004, Emily West Jan 2006

Mediating Citizenship Through The Lens Of Consumerism: Frames In The American Medicare Reform Debates Of 2003-2004, Emily West

Emily E. West

Access to health care is an issue that challenges the imagined boundary between being a ‘consumer’ and being a ‘citizen’. This is especially true in the United States where market-based solutions to providing health care have historically been favored over care organized through government. In the recent debate over how to organize prescription drug coverage for seniors in the United States, stakeholders quoted in the press were more likely to position health care as a consumer issue rather than as an issue of basic rights that accompany citizenship. As scholars such as Lizabeth Cohen (2003) have illustrated, being a ‘consumer’ …