COURSE STRUCTURE
Module 2 Topic B: 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: Performing the Female/Feminine Body
1. Is Judith Butler’s understanding of gendered performance/performativity equally applicable to sporting femininities as it was to sporting masculinities?
2. Consider the relationship between the dominant ideology of femininity and the objectifying of women for the external gaze. What does this mean, and what individual practices are associated with this self-policing/self-disciplining and construction of feminine bodies?
3. What institutions within contemporary society play a key role in shaping, communicating, and self-policing/self-disciplining feminine bodies? Examine your engagement with these institutions, and the role they played in the creation of your gendered being/body, or (for the males in the class) those of women whose lives you are familiar with.
Theme 2: Sport and Feminine Performativity
1. Why is embodied socialization a key process within the construction of gendered bodies within sport and physical culture? Is it possible to intervene into and disrupt this process, if so, how would this be done and what is the outcome?
2. What is wrong with “Mr. Carter’s push-ups”, and in saying that someone “throws like a girl”? What does it mean that such practices/statements reinforce the normative masculinity of sport and physical culture?
3. In what ways are the Olympic Games becoming a site for the advancement of female advancement and emergent forms of embodied femininity?
Theme 3: Sport, Emphasized Femininity and Constricted Bodies
1. How do the sources of gender identity for adolescent girls differ from those for adolescent boys?
2. What is the embodied paradox of constricted sporting emphasised femininity? How are are the codes and expectations of constricted femininity expressed through emphasised feminine sports?
3. How are individuals socialized into normalized codes of femininity through sport and physical culture? What are the physiological and psychological problems that can result from adherence to these codes of constricted femininity?
Theme 4: Sporting Femininities and Instrumental Bodies
1. Why, over recent decades, have women increasingly participated in the physical contacted-based “invasion” games that were once almost exclusively played by males? What broader social, cultural, and political forces could be responsible for this shift?
2. What is the feminine fallacy of soccer? Have you either observed or experienced any other examples whereby sports or physical cultures obtain a gender orientation which does not necessarily reflect the experience of participating in them?
3. Consider the various examples of instrumental sporting femininity (i.e. football, wrestling, rugby). Which do you feel most effectively challenges traditional feminines codes and conventions related to sporting embodiment?
Theme 5: Emergent and Negotiated Sporting Femininities
1. How, if indeed at all, has the emergent form of female masculinity challenged traditional assumptions about female sporting embodiment?
2. Why are some female sporting bodies the target of homophobia? In other words, what types of female athletes become accused of being problems for challenging the traditional assumptions about the female body/femininity? Is there an assumed heterosexuality about athletes who embody sporting emphasised femininity, just as there is an assumed homosexuality for those who don’t?
3. What is the female apologetic defense? As a coping mechanism for athletes, does it challenge or reinforce traditional assumptions about the female body, femininity, and sexuality? Does the objectification and sexualization of female athletes lead to their trivialization, and the trivialization of womens’ sport more generally? What is the paradox faced by female athletes looking to further their career’s and earning potential within commercial culture?
Theme 6: Bodywork, Femininities, and Exercising Bodies
1. What is bodywork, and how is it related to the projection of our gendered embodiments of the self? Can you identify any aspects of your own bodywork, and in what specific ways is it gendered?
2. Explain the reasoning behind the assertion that the “fit and fat” body is a physiological possibility, a cultural impossibility, and a social unaceptibility. Where do you see evidence of both these assumptions within popular culture?
3. Describe the ways that exercise culture can be both empowering and disempowering for those participating in it. How would you reconfigure an aerobics class to make it a more empowering space and experience for women?
