Useful textbook on sport and gender

Anna Maria Hellborg
Dept. Of Sport Sciences, Malmö University

There is much interest in gender and sport issues. It seems to be popular at the moment to argue for gender equality in sport. Many areas of sport have been researched with gender equality and gender norms in mind. There has also been progress in this area in sport. Gender equality has improved. At the same time the problems that has existed for a long time remain. And the book Gender, Sport and Society. An introduction by Hanya Pielichaty addresses these (remaining) issues, like the body, race/ethnicity, disability, mental health, management and e-sport. Hanya Pielichaty is a professor of sport, gender and inclusive education at University of Lincoln, UK; a former elite footballer, she is now a sport business management educator and researcher.

The target readers for this book are undergraduate students. So, the book has a learning focus with seminar activities and assignment questions in each chapter. And the last chapter is about how to study and what to think about as a student. Especially the part about critical thinking can be useful for a student, since it is says in the beginning of the book that we constantly learn about gender and sport because it is a complex issue. Gender might seem comprehensible at first but will prove to be more complicated than one might think. Critical thinking is therefore relevant in a book about gender, and maybe should have been addressed already in the introduction.

After the chapters about sexualities, race/ethnicity and dis/ability, it would seem natural with a chapter discussing the intersections, to gain understanding of what it means when different social categories intersect.

The book is a good starting point for students who begin to dig into this topic. As such it is of course difficult to cover everything, so there must be a selection made. One thing that is central for both sport and gender is the body, and the chapter about the body deals with the issues you would expect –the visibility of the body in sport, body ideals, which are different for men and women. One thing I miss in research about body and sport is the bigger/fat body and its’ place in sport. The focus is only on the ideal, and which bodies fit in. There are sports where bigger bodies are necessary, but this is seldom mentioned when we talk about bodies and sport. Another topic often included when talking about gender and sport is sexualities, and the author offers some important problematizations. What does it mean when we use the acronyms LGBTQIA+ and pack everything into one category? I also appreciate how she problematizes the “coming out”, which has a way of sexualizing people in a way that heterosexuals rarely are exposed to. There are some important nuancing and problematizations in the book that is crucial for students of gender in sport to be aware of.

One thing that may be a bit confusing for an undergraduate reader being introduced to gender and sport, is the sex/gender distinction in the book. It is difficult to understand what the author means. There are many ways of seeing this distinction, it is a complicated issue, and different views are brought up. Hopefully the student can understand that it is difficult, search and find their own view. However, I do not believe the sex/gender distinction will fade, but perhaps get more nuanced.

One chapter is devoted to mental health, this is a chapter that makes this book seem new and relevant, since this is a topic where research is increasing in relation to sport. It has become more important, and the book highlights the problems with the gender perspective. Esport also has its own chapter and to view esport thorough a gender lens is shown as interesting and relevant. The author states that even if esport is new, it has inherited structural gender inequalities from traditional sports.

The author stresses that gender does not mean that it is only about women and women’s issues and emphasizes the importance of men seeing the value of gender equality and that men must be a part of the solution. The book puts forward the gender inequality issues that relate to men, mostly regarding masculinity norms. Another important disclaimer the book makes throughout is that the research mostly has a White Western view, and that research needs to be more diverse. For a reader new to this topic and maybe to research this is relevant information to be given.

I wonder about the choice of topics for the chapters. There are many perspectives on sport to choose from, like media, coaching, school, policy etc., and while many of issues are paid attention to, should they perhaps be chapters of their own? Sometimes the chapters intersect and maybe some things should have belonged in another chapter. Especially the Sport business management chapter is very diffuse and becomes fragmented. Other chapters flow better.

Maybe intersectionality should have had its own chapter. After the chapters about sexualities, race/ethnicity and dis/ability, it would seem natural with a chapter discussing the intersections, to gain understanding of what it means when different social categories intersect. It is not just adding social categories, it becomes something else. A White woman in a wheelchair do not meet the same stereotypes and discrimination as a Black woman. Issues like this could have been explored in a chapter devoted to intersectionality. I get a little confused by the concept “double discrimination”, does that mean something different than intersectionality, that social categories or social positions are added instead of intersected? However, intersectionality is a contested concept, so different interpretations would have been helpful to include.

I appreciate that different concepts are brought up and explained well, so the reader get to know commonly used concepts when studying gender. There were some new concepts for me, like “deadnaming”, which means to use pre-transition name (for a transgender person) instead of the new/right one.

In conclusion, this book is a relevant and nuanced introduction to gender and sport. It could, suitably supplemented, be used in courses about gender and sport or sport and society and be helpful in introducing different aspects of gender and sport as a starting point with follow-up discussions in class. As an active teacher in a course about gender and sport, I see its usefulness to start off conversations that the author stresses as important for this issue, and I agree.

Copyright © Anna Maria Hellborg 2024