Gender and Sexuality

Gender

• Different than sex, which is (usually) biologically determined (usually) by genetic arrangement

• Gender – Is a culturally defined set of roles and behavior mapped onto biological difference

– These expectations vary over time and place, and often have much bigger impact than biological difference

• Sexuality is the practices and identities associated with sexual acts

– These, like gender, vary greatly over time and space

• Although with globalization and GLBT-focused NGO’s, you are seeing category convergence where categories “heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual” which come from Western context are replacing the myriad of localized categories of sexual practice.

In the beginning…

• We have already discussed that in many societies, women were excluded from participation in (and sometimes even spectatorship) of sports.

– And while there are obviously size, strength, precision and endurance differences between averages of large populations of men and women,  women in general (and poor women in particular) still did a lot of physical activity

• Meaning that barriers to sports are almost always created, instead of “natural”.

• Indeed, even these “natural” differences does not stop women from beating men in sports

– In fact, it was a watershed moment when Billie Jean King beat former men’s champion Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match  in 1973 (held in the Astrodome in Houston)

– This situation probably got worse with colonialism, when the idea that women should not be involved in physical activity was part of the “civilizing mission” Europeans forced on other peoples.

• This continued at least the through 1950s when the US became hegemonic in the geopolitical world, and the “house wife” ideal was exported.

– For example, up until 1984, there was no Olympic women’s marathon – because it was thought women could not handle it.

• Women now make up 43% of all marathon finishers; 61% of half marathon finishers

Title IX

• Passed and signed in 1972, its basic tenet was that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

– There was no mention of athletics in the initial law, but the implications became obvious

• In the house it was passed by Edith Green and Patsy Mink; in the Senate, it was by Birch Bayh, who used his position to make sure as regulations were written, that athletics would have to apply them too.

– Disgustingly, the NCAA fought the implementation of regulations (mainly, it fought women getting sports scholarships)

– It took several amendments to get full enforcement, clarification on tests of compliances

– Along with giving baseball exemption from anti-trust laws (setting the stage for professional leagues in the US); nothing impacted the realm of sports more in this country than Title IX.

• This Youtube documentary by Kevin Coogan does an excellent job of showing the general parameters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrIi8fG08D4

Title IX (cont.)

• While there have obviously been big impacts of college athletics; the bigger impact is on high school athletics, where there were a few hundred thousand girls playing in 1972, to 3.27 million today (or 40% of all girls).

– There are of course still disparities: in the Deep South, 50% of  schools are not in full compliance, with schools serving poor students (particularly rural districts) and students of color being the most likely culprits

• This is an example of intersectionality – that multiple axes of difference come together to produce divergent outcomes

• Billy Jean King founded Women’s Sports Foundation in 1974 to also keep watch over girl’s and women’s athletics.  It notes sports participation confers the following benefits on female athletes:

– Reduction in teen pregnancy rates

– Increased GPA and graduation rates

– Reduced risk of later life diseases like breast cancer and osteoporosis

– Increase self-esteem, positive body image, and decreased depression

– Women’s teams tend to be meritocracies not popularity contests – something which used to plague “girl’s activities” at high school level.

– Ability to more easily project confidence and move past mistakes (against older ideas where girls were supposed to be meek and feel guilty)

– Skills learned in these areas transfer to other arenas; they also benefit all women by raising the level of expectation

Title IX (cont.)

• The main charge levied against Title IX is that at the collegiate level, is that some feel it has caused the elimination of men’s sports like wrestling, tennis, gymnastics at some schools, which has been severely disruptive for the impacted athletes.

– However, the main culprit is not women’s sports, it is the “revenue sports”: football and men’s basketball

• In particular, football is ridiculously expensive: football head coaches command more money than other coaches; they have the largest coaching staffs; most expensive training equipment AND give scholarships to 85 players, who all have to be recruited

– If the football team does not make money (and only half of the Division I teams do), it is the ‘rest’ of the sports that suffer

» And while it is more that likely men’s sports are cut entirely, administrations will underfund most women’s sports while keeping them running at zombie-like levels.

• Division II and III, which do not have big time football, have actually added men’s programs in “non-revenue” sports in recent years.

• Nonetheless, even critics admit it has radically changed the landscape of women’s sports in favor of more participation (if not full acceptance)

– The article on Div. 1 Conference Media Guides shows this as well – women are portrayed in active poses in uniform 2004, whereas they were in make up and suggestive poses in 1990.

Women’s Professional Sports

• As Branded, the excellent ESPN documentary points out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zFhbxIzq7o ) female professional athletes often make very little playing their sport (as do the majority of professional baseball players and those in low-spectator men’s sports)

– For the most successful women athletes, the amount of money they bring in sponsorship dwarfs the amount they make on the court/field/track

• This goes disproportionately to women who conform to (white, Western) standards of beauty

– This tends to mean lean, but not particularly muscle-y; straight hair, often blonde; single and interested in men

– Women’s tennis players almost always lead in endorsements and earnings

» Anna Kornakova is the prime example: she led all female athletes in endorsement dollars for about half a decade (when she was around 20),  but never won a major tournament.

• Male athletes’ endorsements dollars occur almost independently of their physical attractiveness

– Although, for African American athletes, appearing to be “well spoken” (a racially loaded term) seems to matter (more on this in future weeks).

Women’s Professional Sports (cont.)

• Women’s sports do extremely well during the Olympics; women’s national soccer team does well during World Cup

– It seems nationalism provides a rooting interest that brings in male viewers

• Indeed, for Women’s World Cup finals involving the US, 61% of viewers were male

• Women’s collegiate basketball Final Four draws very well at about 3.5 million viewers; Women’s College World Series actually passed Men’s College world series (averaging 1.8 million vs. 1.4 million)

•  Both utilize the popular tournament formats (March Madness for basketball; double elimination pools for softball)

• Women’s professional leagues and individual sports (outside of tennis and figure skating) have trouble drawing sufficient attendance and television viewership numbers

– The key is men (generally)  will not watch women’s professional sports in large numbers  – and thus they do not get talked about in the media, thus men don’t watch them, etc…

• Figure skating is interesting because it is a sustainable television product with relatively low levels of male viewership

– Women’s figure skating is also much, much, more popular than men’s figure skating

Women Professional Sports (cont.)

• The rise of Ronda Rousey was genuinely a new thing in the world of sports

– She was a former Olympic judo medalist, who received basically no income through her years of being trained by her mother (also an Olympian, who would wake Ronda every morning by armbarring her) and professional wrestler, “Judo” Gene Lebell

– When she started, there were no women in MMA’s major promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championship

• Strikeforce, a smaller promotion, is where women’s fighting received the most sustained attention

– When UFC bought Strikeforce, UFC President Dana White said there were no plans to start a women’s division

» Rousey’s popularity  led to a “one off” fight, then eventually multiple women’s divisions with champions

– While the fact she is white and blonde was part of her appeal, she doesn’t have a traditionally “feminine” body shape

• She was perhaps the first female athlete to have the persona similar to that of Mike Tyson or early career George Foreman: an unbelievably dominant champion who finishes fights quickly and with great violence (until her last fight).

– She is also (while maybe not a great actor) a great in interviews and in front of the camera, and is a “straight shooter”

– She was by far the UFC’s most important fighter in an important transitional period.

Women and Athletic Activity

• While gym memberships are around 50/50 male female, there is a gendered division

– Men dominate free weight usage  and recreational sports leagues, and are the majority on strength machines; women dominate in “group classes” (apart from CrossFit): yoga, spin, SoulCycle, Zumba, fitness boxing, pilates, etc…

– While most people, men and women, who go the gym care about their appearance and/or health (or perhaps enjoy the sensation of working out), women generally face greater societal pressure to “look good” in ways most men do not

• That is perhaps why women predominate in more total body activity; men in “competitive” sports (and comparing weights lifted to other men is competitive) where a full physique development is not the primary goal.

Women and in Sports Support Jobs

• This is one we will talk about again in a few lectures, but besides men dominating professional athletics, they dominated sports media as well

– It wasn’t until 1975 that a woman reporter first entered an NFL Locker Room

– Most announcing teams  for men’s sports are all male;  as are many “pregame” shows

• Women most often appear as “sideline” reporters

– A prominent exception is Suzyn Waldman, who is a former Broadway singer and is the color commentator (as opposed to play by play) on Yankees radio broadcasts; Jessica Mendoza (former softball player) on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball

• Where as men regularly coach women’s teams, rarely do women coach men’s teams, even at the collegiate level or high school level

– Becky Hammon was hired last year as the NBA’s first female bench coach – despite the fact that some of history’s most successful basketball coaches are women (such as Tennessee’s Pat Summitt)

– Women also only began appearing as referees in the last 5 to 10 years in men’s sports, despite the fact that they performed very well in women’s sports for decades.

• Other ancillary professions – agents, general managers, sports medicine, apparel executives, and surgeons, trainers – are overwhlemingly dominated by men as well.

– Here, glass ceilings are very much alive

Bodies

• The fundamental dividing line in sports is between men and women’s bodies

– Those with men’s bodies go to men’s sports; women’s bodies to women sports.  Each has entirely different record books and championships

• The issue is, of course, that around .1 to .2% of people are “intersex” in some manner (“not XX or XY” and “XXY” are the most common)

– Which means about 11 million people world wide, which is a lot of people

• The Olympics has long performed invasive “gender verification tests” on “suspect” female athletes (before 1992, they performed them on all female athletes)

– These tests are expensive, and most experts agree that chromosomal and hormonal tests are often inconclusive and incomplete at best

• One of the recent high profile cases was South African runner Caster Semenya, who basically got tried in the press because the International Association of Athletic Federations let leak that they were testing her.

– Occasionally, stupid ideas are put forward that intersex athletes competing as women should have to take testosterone suppressant or other such nonsense.

• Transgender individuals have only been allowed to compete in the Olympics since 2004, and have to have undergone complete genital reconstruction, be legally recognized as their competition gender, and undergone two years of hormonal therapy

– Again, these are mostly arbitrary thresholds.  There is no definite tests for “man-ness” and “woman-ness” – those are social constructions

Heteronormativity and Homonormativity (cont.)

• As mentioned in the fandom lecture, the culture surrounding men’s sports in particular is incredibly “heteronormative” (ie, assumes that everyone “normal” is straight and shares the values of “traditional” sexuality and lifestyle)

– For male athletes in particular, it is assumed that one of the rewards of sporting success is becoming more attractive to women, and that male athletes should pursue women and brag about it

• It is also assumed that women should be attracted to male athletes

• It is a culture that for too long led to unchecked domestic and sexual violence by a segment of male athletes against women

– Sports are also the last place where male physical aggression  outside of play is considered by some to be “OK”

• In September 2015, Washington Nationals closer Jonathan Papelbon (age 34) assaulted his teammate (and likely-league MVP) Byrce Harper (age 22) in the dugout for supposedly not hustling on a fly ball

– Some commentators said it was necessary to teach Harper a lesson about “the right way” to play; others noted you cannot attack people in your workplace

– There was tremendous fear and bigotry expressed by some male athletes about having a gay teammate

• Many were uncomfortable with the thought of them being a potential sexual object for other men (despite years of objectifying women)

• Some common locker practices that involved touching and nudity were suddenly given a different meaning to some

Heteronormativity and Homonormativity (cont.)

• Thus, as the Michael Sam saga showed, even being the reigning Defensive Player of the Year in what was universally considered college football’s best conference would keep coaches from giving a legitimate shot based on fears of “team unity”

– Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend after being drafted also showed that many in the male sports world are “OK” with a gay teammate only to the extent he  “closets” his sexuality and keeps it “private”

» Of course, heterosexual athletes kiss their partners all of the time in public without repercussion or comment.

• Michael Sam is undoubtedly not the first “gay” professional football player.

– Many athletes have come out, but almost always after career is over.

– Female athletes, even from the beginning of the 20^th century, were often faced with charges of mannish-ness: at first merely for being seen as not demure enough, but later for being suspected of what was then considered the “disorder” of lesbianism

• This of course was a bind for actual lesbian athletes and coaches, because so stigmatized was the label, that they could never express in public their sexuality for fear of losing their scholarship or job (in fact, this continued well into the 1990s)

– In the last five years, it has been much more possible for female athletes to “come out”, even if all prejudice has not disappeared

Heteronormativity and Homonormativity (cont.)

• What then is homonormativity?

– It is the notion that the gay and lesbian agenda that gets the most support tends to be very white and upper/middle class, and focused not on changing the structures of society, but instead on gays and lesbians gaining acceptance in existing structures

• So the Michael Sam example is a good one: he didn’t seek to primarily change the culture of the NFL or its economically exploitative nature (at least not initially), he just wanted to play the game as it was.

• Another example is a debate surrounding the “Gay Games”: whether it should be a “normal” sporting event, but for GLBTQ people; or whether it should be a “queer” event with a different set of priorities

– This connects to the idea, key to queer theory, that simply adding two more categories to “normal” sexual identity – ie “gay” and “lesbian” – still leaves out a lot of people who do not conform to those labels, just like they do not conform to “straight”

• It also recognizes the from a post-colonial/minor perspective, that not every group shares the same categories and meanings of sexuality as those in the Anglophone tradition do.

Conclusion

• Obviously, while far from perfect, institutional change (ie, the implementation and enforcement of Title IX) has brought about wide-scale changes for women’s sports and women in general

– Title IX was obviously influenced by feminist social theory present in the late 1960s – that women could do many of the same things men can do if given the opportunity

• It is also obvious how hard it is for women and queer athletes to access the highest levels of professional sports riches, because money in sports is organized around “male  (heterosexual) enjoyment” of physical competition, male (heterosexual) bonding and sexualized women’s bodies

– Although there are exceptions, those that do not conform to that structure of enjoyment (be it men, women, or other) tend to not do as well financially, in spite of whatever their accomplishments might be

– Theorizing that structure of enjoyment: be it as patriarchy, heteronormativity, embodiment, or homonormativity, is a major focus of the social science of sports.