Hegemonic-masculinity: by Andy Sprake https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender Locate an image which represents either a reproduction of, or challenge to, hegemonic-masculinity in sport. Write 300 words explaining the significance of your example and relate it to theory/literature. en-us 2017-01-31 08:16:36 UTC 2025-12-04 21:19:40 UTC hello@padlet.com Iranian 'Women's' Football Team https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150470163 This picture depicts the Iranian women's national football team ahead of the 2012 Olympics. FIFA banned this team from the Games under suspicion that they were fielding a number of male players. 
The Telegraph reports "Iran's football association accused of being 'unethical' after it is claimed eight players in women's national team are men awaiting sex change operations"
FIFA is quite clearly a patriarchal dominated governing body and it does highlight a clear gender divide in professional football, almost as if it is two different sports. It could be argued that they are being discriminatory by introducing random gender tests, however could we ever have a game where we have mixed genders in one team? The players accused by FIFA were awaiting a sex change, so would they be allowed to play for the women's team once they have undergone this process? Would that then be acceptable?]]> 2017-01-31 10:04:45 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150470163 https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150471951 2017-01-31 10:13:55 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150471951 Nicola Adams https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150472631 When Women's Boxing was introduced into the 2012 London Olympics, Adams was the first to claim the gold medal. This challenges hegemonic masculinity as it goes against stereotypical feminine norms. At the same Olympic Games, Anthony Joshua won gold in the men's boxing, almost immediately after he became a professional. However, over 4 years later, Adams has only just been signed by Frank Warren, who said he was not an advocate of female professional boxing but Adams opened his eyes.

There are very few sports considered more masculine than boxing and fighters such as Adams, and Irish professional boxer Katie Taylor, are shutting down and challenging the masculine ideology that men are superior in terms of strength and physical skills.]]> 2017-01-31 10:16:52 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150472631 Gender Row https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150472789 This picture shows controversial long-distance 
runner, Caster Semenya. In 2009, after winning Gold and beating her previous best by four seconds she was banned from international competitions for more than a year,  before being cleared by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).  
After this incident, more testosterone testing has been put into place. However, this has faced legal action from other female athletes, as they feel that their high-testosterone levels are "entirely natural." Also stating that the rule was "discriminatory against women."
Is there any justification for this or is it just discrimination?
]]> 2017-01-31 10:17:46 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150472789 Shannon Szabados training with Edmonton Oilers https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150473245 Szabados is an ice hockey goaltender; in 2010 there was interested in signing her for the Edmonton Oilers, a NHL team. She was then nearly signed by the Oilers in 2014, but the deal failed and the Oilers let her train with the team anyway.
 
This challenges the hegemonic masculinity in sport, not only is she allowed to train amongst men - which doesn't happen often - but she is also a goaltender. 
 Hockey goalies tend to be seen as aggressive, big (fat), and strong, which are traits that society would not give to a woman. 
 
Also, there was a media campaign in 2010 when Edmonton first showed interest to sign the goaltender. Journalist Terry Jones was vocal about Edmonton not signing Szabados and critising the clubs decision to sign someone else. Jones said that Edmonton had “no sense of sensibilty.” He also suggested the reason as to why Edmonton did this was because “they didn't want the hockey world making fun of them for dressing a woman for a game.” which suggests that despite having the better option available the Oilers chose to save their reputation thinking that having a woman would effect their status in the league. The Oilers decision does not challenge the idea of hegemonic masculinity in sport; however, Jones’s ideas does challenge it, saying that women are capable of competing alongside men. 
]]> 2017-01-31 10:20:12 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150473245 Katie Taylor https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150473460 This is olympic gold medal winning boxer Katie Taylor, who turned professional shortly after winning her gold in Rio. She was then signed to Eddie Hearn's matchroom boxing and has had 2 professional fights since winning them both comfortably. She challenges Patriarchy. Women's boxing, was introduced to the Olympics only in 2012, and now Taylor is one of the most well known and exciting British prospects. She challenges this idelogy because if you google her name, theyre all boxing photos. No one has ever accused her of hitting like a girl, and shes already been further up a professional card than world championship fights. She headlined the card on her first professional fight which was shown live on sky sports, showing again how she challenges the ideology of boxing being a sport dominated by men. ]]> 2017-01-31 10:21:31 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150473460 Women's Beach Volleyball https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150473549 In the 2016 Rio Olympics, Egyptian beach volleyballer Doaa Elghobashy played in a double match against Germany. As you can see from the picture Doaa is wearing a Hijab, a religious piece of clothing. 

This goes against Hegemony masculinity according to Gramsci as this is not the manufacture on consent. The "norm" would usually be bikinis for the women. Before the 2012 Olympics long sleeve tops and trousers where not allowed to be used. The International Volleyball Federation relaxed the size of the uniforms because; "Many of these countries have religious and cultural requirements, so the uniform needed to be more flexible." 

Beach volleyball is known to be a sexualised sport and so Doaa's actions go against the characteristics. Many men may find this unusual and different considering they have always seen beach volleyball in a certain way. 

 However, whilst this goes against Hegemony masculinity its important to notice that all the headlines where about her clothing and not the result of the volleyball match. This shows how the media portrayed her actions. Further shows that it is against the "norm'".


]]> 2017-01-31 10:22:02 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150473549 Female Bodybuilding https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150474092    Female bodybuilding challenges hegemonic muscularity in Sport because it proves that females are strong and tough enough to do the same thing as men on a same level of effort or even higher.      Due to the fact that they have lower levels of testosterone.

Many also regard female bodybuilders as ‘disgusting’, ‘wrong’ and ‘unattractive’ because they don’t fit it the social ideology of skinny and delicate women. Female bodybuilding breaks that stereotype. 

No women should be stopped of reaching their physical potential in the name of femininity. Everyone should be entitled to set their own ideologies without being criticised for them.

Female bodybuilding appears as unnatural because they are challenging the meaning what is meant by 'real women' and 'real men.'  Those females should be respected and admired for their physique rather than offended and criticised. 

When we see attractive muscular man we either think 'I wanna look like him' or 'I wanna be with him' but when we see muscular female a lot of people portrays as 'what did she do to her body she probably took steroids.' 



]]> 2017-01-31 10:25:06 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150474092 Weightlifting https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150474581 The following image can represent both a reproduction or a challenge to, hegemonic masculinity in sport.
Although the very act of women weightlifting challenges hegemonic masculinity, regarding the fact that many gender ideologies expect women to be weak and slender in comparison to men, it can in fact reproduce hegemonic masculinity.
It can do this in this image in that you can see the difference in the amount lifted by both a man and a woman.
The Olympic record weight lifted by a woman is a total of 333kg (Zhou Lulu, London 2012) and by comparison the male record is a total of 473kg (Lasha Talakhadze, Rio 2016). 
Therefore this image can show that, even when women are clearly challenging the dominant gender ideology of strength being a male trait, men still are able to, even expected to, lift much more weight than women.
This can also be seen in other sports, like tennis.
Although women like Serena Williams challenge the same ideologies as mentioned before, male players are required to play tennis for a longer period of time in order to win their matches at the same tournaments (5 sets, compared to 3).
Both of these are  examples of reproductions of hegemonic masculinity in sport.]]> 2017-01-31 10:27:38 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150474581 Katie Taylor https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150474991 Photo of professional women boxer Katie Taylor. First women to sign a deal with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom boxing.
She has been one of the main undercards on the sky sports and matchroom bills, fighting on the undercard to Joshua and Charles Martin and on Joshua’s December 10th bill against Eric Molina. Challenges the hegemonic masculinity in sport as it goes against having the stereotypical all male boxing cards.
Also challenges hegemonic views that women may not be able to fight or are ‘tough’ 
Taylor is a good example to challenge the gender ideology as she has become a big attraction in the sport and is well respected by many male pro fighters. 
Taylor will fight on the Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs card at Maddison Square gardens, massive card for a female boxer to be involved in again challenging the all-male exclusivity of the sport. 

]]> 2017-01-31 10:29:59 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150474991 Alex Morgan Wages Row With USWNT https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150478027 This photo shows US Women’s National Team forward Alex Morgan in a typically ‘feminine’ pose for Sports Illustrated magazine.
This is typical of sports magazines, which show women in a ‘modelling’ way, reproducing the hegemonic masculinity.
Morgan is does not have any sporting equipment in the photo to show she is a professional athlete. On the same cover, men are shown to be playing sport in a masculine way.
This comes from the patriarchal society in football. It is a system which is run by men, and it shows with this case.
Morgan, along with four of her USWNT teammates, filed a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which claimed that they were being paid far less than their male counterparts. This was their challenge against the hegemonic masculinity in the sport.
After the 2014 World Cup, the U.S. men's team earned $9 million despite the fact they lost in the round of 16
After the 2015 Women’s World Cup, the women's team only earned $2 million for winning the title (the men’s winner got $35million in 2014).
It is not just about international football though, as Morgan said in an interview this month about how some people do not even know that Orlando has a women’s club team, and that they think she is in the city on national team duty.
“Sometimes I’ll be walking through Orlando and people recognise me and they ask if I’m here for the national team. They don’t understand they have a women’s club team in their own city.”
This is because the women’s game is not on TV, both in the States and in the UK. ]]> 2017-01-31 10:46:50 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150478027 Crystal Palace Cheerleaders https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150479099 The image of the Crystal Palace cheerleaders aka ‘The Crystals’ reinforces the idea of a dominant gender ideology in which men are seen as the more dominant sex and women are inferior. Therefore, they provide entertainment both before and during the match for the males. While the men are showing their characteristics of skill and strength during the game, the women are using their sexuality as it is seen to be all they have to offer. Despite their being genuine skill in the art of cheerleading, most spectators will only care about the attractiveness of the women. Football used to and still is in some ways considered a patriarchal game, made for the men by the men, and this could be supported by the introduction of cheerleading. This image clearly demonstrates and backs up the ideology of a hegemonic masculine society as the women are seen to only provide entertainment and visual stimulation for the football supporters who are typically males. For the women themselves they get to showcase their abilities but their talents and efforts are rarely considered. Young women, mainly in America, aim to be cheerleaders as it is seen as a way of being considered popular. Also, cheerleading may be classed as a sport by some and although this may again show dominant gender ideology due to them wearing short skirts and having make-up done etc, it could be empowering for women to perform their sport to an audience of thousands.]]> 2017-01-31 10:53:02 UTC https://padlet.com/asprake/TL2115SportandGender/wish/150479099