Performing rodeo queen culture: Competition, athleticism and excessive feminine masquerade

Abstract

Within the culture of rodeo, women occupy contested and often contradictory positions. Rodeo queens participate in excessive feminine masquerade not easily or exclusively defined by traditional, patriarchal codes. In performance, the rodeo queen's body is an active athletic one and, although she is positioned in the rodeo as a spectacle, to‐be‐looked‐at, the athleticism of her performance denies complete objectification. This study argues that rodeo queens practice a clandestine feminism, rarely subverting the patriarchal structure of rodeo in overt ways, but finding personal empowerment and agency through the performance of “competing.”