COURSE STRUCTURE
Module 2 Topic A: Discussion Questions
Following the lecture, and having read the assigned readings and watch relevant video clips, you are expected to prepare answers for TWO (those questions in green) of the following discussion questions. Your prepared answers will form the basis of your verbal contributions within discussion sections
These answers should:
1. Be a minimum of 150 words for each answer (not including the question or reference list).
2. Be typed and double-spaced.
3. Have the complete question immediately prior to the answer.
4. Cite appropriately any sources used in your answer (use appropriate Style and Format Guidelines).
5. Include a complete reference list (use appropriate Style and Format Guidelines).
6. Hand in a hard copy of answers during discussion section
The aim of these answers is to get you to engage and extend the information covered within each theme, in order to generate a better understanding of core concepts, knowledge, and issues.
These questions are intended as preparation for both the discussion section and exam related to this topic.
PLEASE NOTE: Within the multiple choice section of the module exam, you should expect to be asked questions on the information related to any of these questions.
However, the ONE thematic essay question for the module exam will be selected from those questions in green.
Following the review session for this module the selected question will be designated in red.
Theme 1: De-Naturalizing the Body and Sex/Gender Differences
1. What is the difference between sex and gender? In what ways can they be considered either natural or unnatural categories?
2. Outline the elements which contribute to the social construction of the gendered individual. How is the social construction of gendered experiences, identities, and bodies an example of the dialectic relation between society and the individual?
3. According to Judith Butler, what is the difference between gender performance and gender performativity?
4. Consider your own gendered experience, outline some of the ways your gendered being has been formal and informally policed. To what extent have you engaged in the self-policing/self-disciplining of your own gender identity, performance, and body? How has this expressed itself within sport or physical culture?
Theme 2: The Gender Binary and Patriarchy
1. Describe the traditional gender binary. Do you think it still operates within contemporary society, and if so how does it influence your understanding of gendered roles and expectations?
2. Are there any major institutions within society that are not patriarchal, i.e. they do not reproduce traditional gender hierarchies? Is sport a patriarchal institution?
3. How would you explain the emergence and persistence of patriarchal relations within society? Are they just a function of the innate differences between men and women, which make males somehow dominant over women?
Theme 3: Sport and Performative Gender Difference
1. Describe what is meant by the fact that sport and physical culture are both gendered and gendering.
2. What causes the sporting separation between males and females during adolescence?
3. How are the various dimensions of the social construction of sporting gender interrelated? Consider some examples of each of these dimensions (ideological formations; institutional structures; cultural texts; cultural practices) other than those discussed in the lecture.
Theme 4: The Hyper-Masculine Centre and Performances of American Sport Culture
1. What determines whether a sporting activity is at the centre, or indeed at the margins/periphery, of the American sporting system? Would this system be different in other countries, if so, how and why?
2. Describe how sport/physical culture functions as a heteronormative space. How are male sporting/physical cultural practices and bodies related to an assumed heterosexuality?
3. How are the various elements of Messner’s (2002) “triad of violence” related? What are some of the benefits of involvement in hyper-masculine sport practices not acknowledged by critics of sport?
4. Critically examine either your own experiences, or observations of others, with regard to the role of sport/physical culture in (re)producing traditional masculine norms, identities, and bodies.
Theme 5: Hegemonic and Mosaic Masculinities
1. In what way can a masculinity be considered hegemonic? What role does sport and physical culture play in the expression of hegemonic masculinity?
2. Describe some elements of the bodily/corporeal performance of hegemonic masculinity. Are they more evident in some sports/physical cultural practices more than others?
3. What is mosaic masculinity? How is it related to the performance of sport/physical culture-based masculinities?
Theme 6: Expressions of Sporting Hegemonic Masculinities
1. What are some of the problems associated with the creation and performance of instrumental and professional masculinities?
2. Why do middle class, white collar male workers want muscles? What social and/or economic function do they play?
3. Critically examine the notion of representative sporting masculinities. Do you think they contribute to the continuing subordination and disempowering of women?
Theme 7: Emergent Sporting Masculinities
1. What is the difference between professional and cosmetic sporting masculinities?
2. Do you consider that the heterosexual and able-bodied centres of masculine sport culture have been in any way disrupted by the emergence of homosexual and adaptive sporting masculinities?
3. How, if indeed at all, has the public pronouncement of Jason Collins’, Robbie Roger’s, and/or Michael Sam’s homosexuality undermined the heteronormativity of mainstream sporting practices and bodies?
4. In what ways is Murderball an example of the practice and experience of mosaic masculinity? Are there any aspects of Murderball which do not conform to the norms of sporting hyper-masculinity?
