Sport and Gender Identities: Masculinities, Femininities and Sexualities

How are gender and sexuality constructed and contested in sport? This important new book brings together gender studies and sexuality studies to provide original and critical insights on identity formation within a wide range of sport-related relations and practices. Contested meanings of "gender" and "sexuality," the gender-power relations constructed in and through sport, and the connections between gender, sexuality and sport-related theories, policies and practices are made clear in this comprehensive and engaging text. The authors draw on key contemporary theoretical debates concerning gender, sport and identity that have been developed in a range of disciplines and subject fields including sociology, social and cultural geography, media studies and management studies. The book is structured into three sections, addressing issues of masculinity, "feminization" and sexuality: Part One, "Representing masculinities in sport" explores media representations in men's football, tennis,rugby and skate boarding. Part Two, "The "feminization" of male sports arenas" examines ways in which women have contested male-dominated sporting arenas of basketball, triathlon and cricket. Part Three, "The performance of sexuality in sporting spaces" analyses the development of queer theory in sport studies, the significance of homophobia in sport, the role of the Gay Games, and management practices in developing sport. This book provides the most comprehensive critique of gender and sexuality in sport to be published to date and will be of particular interest to students and academics working in sport studies, leisure studies, gender studies, queer and sexuality studies, social and cultural geography.