Idrottens genus. En forskningsgenomgång

Abstract

Sporting practices, particularly competitive sport, are often linked to notions of masculinity. All the same, not all boys and men do sport. And in fact, a lot of girls and women are involved in sport but they all do sport under the influence of deeply ingrained notions about gender. The purpose of this article is to elucidate this relation between sport and gender. The purpose is, also, to show how research in the humanities and in the social sciences in Sweden has attempted to challenge the notions of gender in sport. The objective of this study, as is the case in most research, is to put gender relations in sport under contestation. Sports studies were, up until the late 1980s, by and large, gender blind. In 1989, Eva Olofsson's thesis Do Women Have a SportingChance?contributed to putting gender issues on the research agenda. The 1990s saw a move towards an interest for masculinity as a problem in sport. The analytical approach moved towards post structural ways of theorising discourse and practice on sport. In Håkan Larsson's thesis Engendering Sport. A History of the Present on the Male and the Female Athlete (2001), the construction of the gendered sports person is analysed as a reflection of the work for equal opportunities in sport. The notions of equality in sport are deeply embedded in discourses of heteronormativity. The paper is concluded by some suggestions for continued studies on gender in sport.