Challenged America: China and America – women and sport, past, present and future

Abstract

This chapter compares sport in the US and China and its relationship to nationalism and gender over the last centruy. In both the US and China sport is closely related to the construction of a national identity, but its role in that construction reflects the difference between an established world superpower and a nation seeking to establish itself as a superpower after a century of national humiliation. Chinese people hope that the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will erase the label of the ‘the sick man of East Asia’ and mark China's emergence as a world power. In China the pursuit of national victories contributed to the support of women's sports and the subsuming of gender issues by issues of nationalism, while US sports have been characterized by a sexualization of female athletes that was never subsumed by US nationalism. Chinese female athletes were able to step into the role of the ‘woman warrior’ who wins glory for the nation, while the figure of the ‘woman warrior’ was largely absent in US popular culture until the 1990s, when she reappeared in part due to the influence of Chinese culture. Chinese female athletes will mount the major challenge to US medal supremacy in the 2008 Olympics, but it will be difficult for China to topple the US from the top place in the medal count. The conclusion is that while the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games may be a harbinger of some degree of ‘Eastern imperialism’ in the more distant future, the West is now dominant and still will be in 2008.