You can manage bookmarks using lists, please log in to your user account for this.
Media type:
E-Article
Title:
`HARD' WOMEN AND `SOFT' WOMEN : The Social Construction of Identities among Female Boxers
:
The Social Construction of Identities among Female Boxers
Contributor:
Mennesson, Christine
Published:
SAGE Publications, 2000
Published in:
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35 (2000) 1, Seite 21-33
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1177/101269000035001002
ISSN:
1012-6902;
1461-7218
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
This article uses a combination of Bourdieu's concept of habitus theory and an interactionist perspective to examine women's participation in the traditionally `man's world' of boxing. The two major aims of the study were to identify how women entered and stayed involved in boxing and the types of identities that they forged in the process. The data were collected via participant-observation and in-depth interviews with a sample of women boxers and their coaches. It was found that the women's entry into and continued involvement in boxing depends on both disposition and situation. It was also concluded that women boxers occupied an ambivalent position: on the one hand, by definition, they challenged the existing gender order; on the other hand, they also reinforced the status quo by displaying traditional modes of femininity. This tension was related to the modalities of boxers' practice (`hard' or `soft') and their social histories. In short, the process of identity-formation among women boxers was inseparably social and sexual.