‘We’re, like, a cute rugby team’

How whiteness and heterosexuality shape women’s sense of belonging in rugby

Bibliographic Data

ID21118872
AuthorsAnima Adjepong (0000-0001-5796-1046, The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume52
Issue2
Pages209-222
Publication date2017-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Review for the Sociology of Sport (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1012-6902 • E-ISSN: 1461-7218
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1012690215584092
OpenAlexW2333333607
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited49

This article considers how race and sexuality mutually inform the ways women experience their sense of belonging in sport. An examination of how white and heterosexual privilege structure belonging for 15 women rugby players in the sport finds that the ways in which some players assert their belonging runs the risk of reifying oppressive norms associated with heterosexual femininity and white privilege. This analysis provides a nuanced understanding of how individual women may rely on certain structures of domination to take up space in sport in ways that rely on and reproduce inequality. Although women rugby players may challenge norms of (white) heterosexual femininity, they experience these norms as mediated through their particular social locations. As a result, how women rugby players take up space in sport may be complicated by their specific relationship to social constructions of gender, sexuality, and race

Femininity · Heterosexuality · Human sexuality · Masculinity · Political science · Sociology · White privilege · Gender Studies · Physical Education and Pedagogy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society