Gender, sport and politics:
A Handbook from the margins

Anna Sätre
Dept of Sport Sciences, Malmö University

The Routledge Handbook of Gender Politics in Sport and Physical Activity, published in 2022 by Routledge, is edited by Győző Molnar, Professor of Sociology of Sport and Exercise at the University of Worcester, and Rachael Bullingham, Senior Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire.

The handbook consists of 32 chapters and is divided into four parts: Gendered history, Gender binary troubles, Intersecting gender, and Gender, politics, sport and physical activity case studies. The intersection of gender, sport, and politics is an ongoing story. One current example from last year’s Olympics, 2024, is how Imane Khelif from Algeria involuntarily became the focal point in a debate about chromosomes. Right-wing political voices once again entered the debate of gender, advocating for the ‘fairness’ for women in sports. Social media was flooding with discussions about Imane, her appearance and skills not being female enough, definitions of what constitutes a woman through gender and sex, and the big issue that everything is presented as being centred around – fairness. It is fair to say that this handbook has a lot to deal with.

If this was not already clear for you, I am writing from the perspective of being a woman in the research field of gender studies and sport. If there is anything more infuriating for me to listen to than men claiming to know what women are, need or want, without ever themselves listening to the voices of those they claim to speak for, it is when those claims have real consequences in restricting the lives of others. As a fellow Other, every perspective questioning the effects of marginalisation and hierarchy is music to my ears. I believe this is why this book was handed to me. The editors claim that their handbook is an act of resistance against the right-wing movement in the West, marginalisation, and gender binarism. I have made it my mission to evaluate this claim through this book review.

The authors show how sex verification instead creates exclusion, since gender binaries are not that easy to uphold. Individuals are being measured to two static gender norms, which are not always a fit.

In the first chapter of this 350+ pages anthology, editors Győző Molnar and Rachel Bullingham discuss the political aspect of gender and sports, from the perspective of an increase of populist right-wing political parties in the West, and how this political environment undermines gender studies and the LGBTQ communities. Since this book was published, Donald Trump was once again elected for presidency in the US in 2024. One of his first actions was to sign an executive order banning transgender women from female sports. The Republicans argue that this order ‘restores fairness to sports’ (BBC News, 2025).

In chapter 3, Pam R. Sailors and Charlene Weaving problematise ‘fairness’ in gender binarism. The original idea with sex-segregation – and sex verification in women – was said to be to create ‘fairness’ for women in sport. The authors show how sex verification instead creates exclusion, since gender binaries are not that easy to uphold. Individuals are being measured to two static gender norms, which are not always a fit. Since gender and sex are being intertwined, this leads to normative binary standards of femininity being connected to women and masculinity being connected to men, resulting in cynical approaches to people diverging from these norms.

I remember when, just a few years ago, Caster Semenya from South Africa was the talking topic of gender and ‘fairness’ in media. Her gender was questioned for not fitting the average levels of testosterone for women. Ekain Zubizarreta and Madeleine Pape (chapter 5) use Caster Semenya, with her natural levels of testosterone, as an example in the discussion of ‘fairness’. They raise the issue that male athletes do not experience this regulation, even though their testosterone levels vary between individuals. The authors discuss the historical regulations of measuring women, first through chromosomes and then testosterone levels, and they declare that now is the time for resistance – with the aim for new visions of ‘fairness’.

What, then, is fairness in sport? Plenty of aspects of un-fairness are on display in this handbook, and I will highlight some of them.

In chapter 2, Aneta Grabmüllerova and Hans Erik Næss analyse historical mass media coverage from a gender perspective of the Olympics from 1984 to 2018, examining the issue of gender representation in media and the development of social media. Their evaluation shows that, even though the overall participation in the Olympics has improved in equality amongst men and women, the media coverage is still in need of further improvement. Aage Radmann and I recently published an article on a study where we interviewed female sports journalists about their view of gender in sport and media. Even though a lot has changed, gendered issues remain (Radmann and Sätre, 2024).

Gendered representation in sport is not only measured in the number of men and women competing in a sport, but also in the representation of those behind the scenes. For example, Annelies Knoppers and Ramón Spaaij (chapter 4), Yvette L. Figueroa and Emily A. Roper (chapter 7), and Amalia Drakou, Popi Sotiriadou and Dimitris Gargalianos (chapter 30) discuss the problems regarding representation in leading positions in sport. There are many interacting aspects that hinder women from taking up these spaces, but one seemingly insurmountable issue is that femininity is seen as inferior to masculinity. Another aspect of representation ‘behind the scenes’ is discussed in chapter 13, where Verity Postlethwaite, Claire Jenkin and Emma Sherry investigate gender representation in diplomacy and decision-making and criticise the male-dominated academic literature in sport.

Inspired by the above section, I hereby provide you with a quick account of representation. The contributors to this edited collection are located in Denmark, UK, Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe, Italy, Greece, Fiji, USA, Israel, Norway, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, and France. A glance at the authors names made me think that there is a majority of female contributors, but I only looked up the editors Győző Molnar (male) and Rachael Bullingham (female). This book deals with marginalisation in the West with a focus on gender, but, needless to say, marginalisation of people is seen all over the world, and gender interacts with ethnicity, sexuality, ‘race’, and more.

Yoko Kanemasu and Atele Dutt (chapter 18) argue for the importance of intersectional approaches to sports studies. The authors focus on a postcolonial understanding of women’s relationship with sport. Their chapter contributes with research from the Global South, and they discuss how nation, masculinity, history, sport and militarism intertwine, causing and upholding the exclusion of women from sports.

In chapter 11, Adam B. Evans, Sine Agergaard and Verena Lenneis explain how space can become racialised. They show how populist and nationalist politics target spaces with the intent of furthering racist agendas. Their example is of separatist swimming in Denmark. A space where women can go swimming with the absence of men is not seen as a problem by Danish right-wing politicians when it is referring to nude out-door swimming in the ocean, an activity popular among ethnic white Danish women. Separatist swimming in-doors, however, is seen as problematic, as the right-wing politicians perceive this as a space for Muslim women. The in-door separatist swimming hours were actually cancelled by political decision, with the argument that it fostered a ‘parallel society’ which posed a threat to the cultural majority and ‘Danish values’.

My urge to treat this handbook as an act of resistance was tested by chapter 8. Eric Anderson writes a chapter discussing patriarchy.

Michael Burke, Matthew Klugman and Kate O’Halloran (chapter 12) discuss sexism in Australian Rules football. Women are restricted from playing the game, for their own ‘protection’. The authors argue that to restrict women from doing a sport they themselves want to do, and to refer to this restriction as ‘protection’, is to perform sexism – even when the will to protect is sincere – since it comes from a position of giving men the authority over their own bodies while withholding that same authority from women. Today, women can compete in a version of the sport, but not in the way the sport was originally conceived. In the female version, women play a shorter period of time, with fewer players and a smaller ball.

The handbook offers different perspectives on gendered bodies and appearance. In chapter 14, Amelia Laffey and Stuart Whigham discuss masculinity and femininity in female university sport from the perspective of hegemonic masculinity, and the objectification of women’s bodies and discrimination through appearance. In chapter 26, Aimee Vlachos and Nuria Alonso Garcia raise narratives of female surfers, discussing the persistent sexualisation of women. While these chapters focus on female appearance, chapter 9 focuses on male appearance. James J. Brittain investigates masculinity in road cycling with a focus on the male body, and how the ideal body for a male road cyclist is not at all aligning with the normative standards of the ideal male body. The male road cyclist strives to live up to the idealistic image of a road cyclist, who is skinny with small arms and shaved legs. The masculine norm in road cycling therefore, in these specific bodily traits, stands in direct contrast to the dominant masculine norm in society.

A following problem with gendered appearance is discussed in chapter 10 by Anna Kavoura and Santtu Rinne, who discuss gender binary in dance and its challenges of transgender inclusion. In chapter 22, Abby Barras discusses trans-people passing as cis or not in sport spaces. The author raises the perspective that being trans in sport is not a simple question of passing as a specific gender, since not all trans-people want to pass as cis.

My urge to treat this handbook as an act of resistance was tested by chapter 8. Eric Anderson writes a chapter discussing patriarchy. The author questions the ability to use the concept of patriarchy to understand gender indifferences and inequality today. To question concepts and its outcomes is always healthy, I agree. But it is simply not enough to look at a situation without an understanding of its history and other interacting factors. For example, the author writes that ‘women in these sports are free to demand equal pay, but salary negotiation is depending upon the sporting organisations’ abilities to pay those demands’ (page 86). I argue that this is not an accurate way to analyse and understand gender differences regarding the salary gap (and other issues) in today’s sports.

I will however say that the rest of the book made up for this one chapter. A favourite of mine was chapter 16. Adi Mohel discusses norms about winning, and the idea that men play to win at all costs, while women do not. The author investigates modern sports culture through masculine and feminine coded values. Boys and girls often go into sports for the same reason, namely, to be with friends, have a sense of belonging, and to develop close bonds. However, the gendered structure of sports undermines the ability for boys to further develop close relationships and instead, from an early age, teaches boys to be competitive. This leads to men developing a narrow definition of what success looks like, centred around performance and winning. The author emphasises that it is a problem that sport is influenced by this masculine coded norm. I found this perspective very interesting, raising the question of what sport is and what it can be.

My conclusion is that the editors, who’s aim was to produce a handbook against right-wing political movement, marginalisation, and gender binarism, have succeeded. The key points I am taking with me is the increased knowledge of how sport interacts with gender, how being perceived as ‘good’ at sports intertwine with masculinity, how the right-wing political agenda targets sport to marginalise the lives of Others – and how the voices and lived experiences of marginalised people shaped this knowledge. This handbook is a valuable contribution for everyone at the margins, pointing out a range of important issues in the intersection of politics, gender and sport.

Copyright © Anna Sätre 2025

References

Debusmann Jr., Bernd (2025). Trump signs order banning transgender women from female sports. 6 February 2025, BBC News. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g85k3z35o

Radmann, Aage & Sätre, Anna. (2024). Female Sports Journalists: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same. Media and Communication. 12. DOI: 10.17645/mac.8200