The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport

Rory Magrath, Jamie Cleland, Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath, Jamie Cleland, Eric Anderson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030197988
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030197995
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Over the past two decades there has been a rapid transformation of masculinities in the West, largely facilitated by a decline in cultural homophobia. The significant changes in the expression of masculinity, particularly among younger generations of men, have been particularly evident in men's team sports, which have become an increasingly diverse and inclusive culture. Drawing upon work from a wide range of established and emerging international scholars, this handbook provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary analysis of the contemporary relationship between masculinity and sport. It covers a range of areas including history, media, gender, sexuality, race, violence, and fandom, considering how they impact a range of different sports across the world. Students and scholars across many disciplines will find the unparalleled overview provided by these specially commissioned chapters an invaluable resource.

© The Author(s) 2020

R. Magrath et al. (eds.)The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19799-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introducing the Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport

Rory Magrath¹ , Jamie Cleland² and Eric Anderson³

(1)

Solent University, Southampton, UK

(2)

University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

(3)

Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Winchester, Winchester, UK

Rory Magrath (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Jamie Cleland

Email: [email protected]

Eric Anderson

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introducing the Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport

Back in 2017, Palgrave’s Gender Studies Commissioning Editor, Amelia Derkatsch, approached us with a view to editing this Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport. When presented with this, we grasped at the opportunity to produce a unique resource. As we discuss in greater detail later in this chapter, a substantial body of academic work investigating the relationship between sport, gender, and sexuality already exists. Seminal work, such as the Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality (Hargreaves & Anderson, 2014), the Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Kimmel, Hearn, & Connell, 2005), and the Men and Masculinities journal (established in 1998), illustrates just how prominent the study of contemporary masculinities has become. In the midst of domineering socio-political movements—#MeToo and #EverydaySexism, for example—the emergence of a so-called ‘toxic’ masculinity also demonstrates the cultural significance of studies of masculinity (Anderson & Magrath, 2019).

Despite the effect of this highly influential work, there have been major theoretical, conceptual, and paradigmatic shifts in masculinity studies in recent years (Borkowska, 2018), meaning that much of this work must now be described as outdated. Indeed, the field of masculinity studies tends to change fast. Accordingly, the result of this Handbook is, we hope, an accurate reflection of many of these changes, providing a unique, informative resource which can be used by academics across various disciplines, students, and a wide range of sports practitioners.

The Handbook is, deliberately, wide-ranging across different sports (from soccer to roller derby) and different local and global contexts (from Sweden to Zimbabwe) and, perhaps most importantly, tackles how masculinity intersects with a range of other key issues, including race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, sexuality, and social class—as well as cutting across numerous disciplines, including sociology, psychology, media, literature, policy, and deviance. Finally, the Handbook also incorporates personal, ideological, and political narratives and is also inclusive of varied conceptual, methodological, and theoretical approaches.

To accomplish this task, we include chapters from a range of established scholars, whose work has already informed masculinity studies, as well as numerous emerging scholars seeking to contribute further to this field. Moreover, while the Handbook is primarily made up of Western-centric scholars and foci, we also dedicate an entire part to countries from across the world. Each of the 30 chapters is original, written specifically for inclusion in this Handbook. Thus, we believe that the outcome is a Handbook which offers an eclectic and exciting range of contributions related to further understanding the evolving relationship between masculinity and sport.

Studying Masculinity and Sport in the Twentieth Century

The systematic study of masculinity can be traced back to the early twentieth century; a time characterized by heightened cultural concerns around the apparent feminization of the US school system (O’Shea, 1909; see also Tyack & Hansot, 1988). Despite this, however, it took another 50 years for the rapid growth of social scientific inquiry into masculinity. When this research emerged, it focused almost entirely on what was missing from men’s lives (compared to women’s lives) or the social problems associated with masculinity (Pleck, 1975). For example, in The Forty-Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role, David and Brannon (1976) outlined four central tenets of masculinity: “no sissy stuff; (men must be) a big wheel; (men must be) as sturdy as an oak; and give ‘em hell’.” Thus, in order to convey an aura of masculinity, boys and men were required to show no fear or weakness—and hide any trace of femininity. It was later established that the biggest driving force in policing masculinity in the West was that of homophobia (Morin & Garfinkle, 1978).

The broadening of the field of sports sociology in the 1980s and, in particular, the 1990s saw an evolution of critical studies of men and masculinities; most notably from feminist concerns related to the role men played in the reproduction of gender inequality (e.g. Messner & Sabo, 1990; Pronger, 1990). Raewyn Connell¹ was the most influential scholar of this time; in her book, Gender and Power (1987), she suggested that there were multiple types of masculinities, each existing in a social web—or hierarchy—where one maintained a hegemonic dominant effect over all the others. This was further systemized in her 1995 book, Masculinities. As Roberts shows in his chapter on theorizing masculinities (see Chap. 3), it was this social process of hegemonic masculinity that necessitated men’s emotional stoicism (Williams, 1985) and willingness to accept and inflict injury on other men (Nixon, 1993).

Exploring the process of hegemonic masculinity, Connell famously defined it as, “the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy” (p. 77). While the empirical data to support the process of patriarchy has been heavily critiqued (e.g. Moller, 2007), the concept of hegemonic masculinity was used by numerous scholars to argue that boys and men construct their ideologies and sculpt their bodies to align with hegemonic perspectives. Indeed, research in the 1990s documented the hierarchical construction of masculinities in various institutional settings. This was evident, for example, in numerous studies in British school settings, which highlighted high levels of homophobia (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Nayak & Kehily, 1996; Plummer, 1999; Salisbury & Jackson, 1996). Here, masculinity was policed largely by the utility of homophobic language (see Rivers, 2011), but also by heterosexist curricula (Atkinson & DePalma, 2008) and symbolically through the enactment of Section 28 of the Local Government Act (Nixon & Givens, 2007), which prohibited saying anything positive about homosexuality in British schools.

But while education was proven a major institution where the strict policing of masculinity was evident, we believe that it is sport—perhaps the most dominant of Western culture’s major institutions—where this policing was most prominent (Anderson & White, 2018). Of course, sport has traditionally and historically served as a ‘male preserve’ (Dunning, 1986, p. 79). The motivation behind the establishment and emergence of many dominant sports toward the end of the nineteenth century lay primarily in the reaffirmation of an idealized form of masculinity; one distanced from femininity and homosexuality. Much like other dominant cultural institutions, this was accomplished through multiple mechanisms, including socializing boys into physical violence, sexism, aggression, excessive competitiveness, a willingness to sacrifice, obedience to authority, compulsory heterosexuality, and—essential to the study of masculinity—men’s homophobia (Kimmel, 1994).

Evidencing this perhaps most succinctly, the resurgence of the Olympic Games in 1896 was “conceived as a tool to promote and spread European aristocratic and masculine values” (Carpentier & Lefèvre, 2006, p. 1113)—a far more sinister reality than the oft-purported ‘international friendship’ myth. Almost a century later, the value of competitive team sports was again bolstered, largely because, during this time, male homosexuality was associated with softness and femininity—as we discuss later in this chapter. Thus, sport once again became the primary mechanism through which boys and men were able to “align their gendered behaviors with idealized and narrow definitions of masculinity” (McCormack & Anderson, 2014a, p. 114)—thus attempting to avoid any suspicion of ‘deviant’ sexualities (McCreary, 1994). This avoidance was conceptualized by Anderson (2009) as homohysteria, the fear of being socially perceived as gay. Anderson argued that, in order for a culture of homohysteria to exist, three social factors must coincide with one another: (1) mass cultural awareness of homosexuality; (2) a cultural zeitgeist of disapproval toward homosexuality; and (3) disapproval of men’s femininity, as it becomes intimately associated with homosexuality.

Througho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introducing the Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Back Matter