Women on sport : corporealities and subjectivities

Abstract

Work that discusses corporeality and subjectivity – from the point of departure of the intimate connection between construction of the body and of identities – are taking on an everincreasing centrality within social theory today. One particularly pressing problem that has been studied refers to how particular “body projects” influence gender relations and, in particular, the ways in which they mold or act upon female subjectivity. This paper looks at results from research conducted in two different sports – professional volleyball and show jumping – in order to reflect upon the power of sport both to work as a space of transgressive and empowering notions and ways of “being a woman” and to tend toward mere reproduction (or creation of) patriarcal forms that discipline women’s bodies and spirit.