Helen Jefferson Lenskyj
Biographic Data
| ID | 306129 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Jefferson Lenskyj |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen Jefferson |
| FAMILY NAME | Lenskyj |
| SIGNATURE | LENSKYJ H J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 167 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Quest for Social Justice in Sport
Although social justice initiatives in education and the workplace have decades-long histories, sport has been slow to follow. In the areas of sport policies, sport practices and sport scholarship, liberal/reform approaches dominate, while the structural roots of injustice - racism, colonialism, misogyny, homophobia, disablism, homophobia and transphobia - remain largely unchanged. Use and misuse of sport sciences contributes to this pattern, and…
Quest for Social Justice in Sport
Quest for Social Justice in Sport
Global North and Global South
The Olympic Games
Do the Olympic Games really live up to their glowing reputation? As the biggest global sport mega-event, the Olympic Games command public and media attention, while Olympic mythology and ritual obscure their underlying function as a profit-making business enterprise
Olympic Ideals and the Limitations of Liberal Protest
Idealist rhetoric has served the interests of all players in the Olympic industry for more than a century, and continues to do so, despite global resistance campaigns and indisputable evidence of the International Olympic Committee’s self-serving hypocrisy. Much of this rhetoric has its origins in nineteenth-century Europe, as expressed by Coubertin, the founder of the modern games. In Western democracies, propaganda that invokes Olympic ideals a…
Sport mega-events and leisure studies
Sport mega-events exemplify the power of elitism, commercialisation and consumerism in leisure services. Progressive leisure studies researchers can influence sport and leisure policy by investigating the broader sociocultural impacts of sport mega-events on individuals and communities, with the goal of promoting sport and cultural democracy
Gender Politics and the Olympic Industry
This book explores how the Olympic industry has shaped hegemonic concepts of sporting masculinities and femininities for its own profit and image-making ends, examining its continuing marginalization
The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies
A comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference collection, bringing together an authoritative and international line-up of scholars to examine key social and political issues related to the Olympics. An
Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies
Reflections on Communication and Sport
In this essay, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj reflects on how heternormativity and gender identities have been characterized in sport media for more than a century. In light of these issues, Lenskyj reflects on why communication about sport may have particular importance in fueling heternormativity and a climate of homophobia. In reflecting on her journey as a scholar focused on the nexus of sport, gender, and media, Lenskyj notes that researchers have …
Raising “Good Vigorous Animals”
Vitalist theories of physiology, together with notions of 'femininity' and 'masculinity,' helped to shape medical views and practices relating to children's health in Ontario at the turn of the century. In their pronouncements on sex-appropriate school programmes and curricula, doctors and medically-trained physical educators were influenced as much by socially constructed notions of the ideal feminine personality as by medical considerations suc…
Olympic Industry Resistance
"Scholar and activist Helen Jefferson Lenskyj continues her critique of the Olympic industry, looking specifically at developments in the post-9/11 and postbribery scandal era. Examining events and activism in host cities, as well as in several locations that bid unsuccessfully on the Olympics, Lenskyj shows how basic rights and freedoms, particularly of the press and of assembly, are compromised. Lenskyj investigates the pro-Olympic bias in medi…
Olympic Industry Resistance
The best Olympics ever
Funding Canadian University Sport Facilities
Since the 1990s, students have been resisting the increasing corporatization of Canadian and American university campuses. More recently, administrative attempts to impose higher student activity fees to fund stadiums and other sporting facilities have been met with student opposition. In 2001, a referendum was held at the University of Toronto, Canada, on the issue of a mandatory student levy to fund a new stadium. This case study will be analyz…
Best Olympics Ever?, The
Inside the Olympic Industry
Sydney 2000, Olympic sport and the Australian media
(1999). Sydney 2000, Olympic sport and the Australian media. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 23, Country and Calling, pp. 76-83
Sport and Corporate Environmentalism
This article examines the notion of sustainable sport in the context of preparations for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. More specifically, the article critiques the strategy of 'corporate environmentalism', which the organizers have deployed in their attempt to remediate the site of the Games
Inside Sport' or 'On the Margins
This article analyses the contradictory constructions of gender relations in the popular Australian sport magazine Inside Sport. The investigation shows that, while overt sexual exploitation of women is still present, particularly in the pictorial content, more complex marginalizing practices are also in evidence. Furthermore, it will be argued that the juxtaposition of critical text and exploitative graphics is organized to convey a sense of 'ba…
When Winners Are Losers
This is an analysis of events surrounding the Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia Olympic bid processes, with a specific focus on corporate and media attempts to manufacture public consent, and individual and group accommodation and resistance to such attempts. Print materials, including the official publications of the bid committees and newspaper coverage of events in both cities, constitute the primary source of data. It is argued that the t…
Feminist Critiques of Physical Education
Whose sport? whose traditions? Canadian women and sport in the twentieth century
Combating Homophobia in Sport and Physical Education
The discrimination experienced by women in sport in North America has been well documented (e.g., Hall, 1987; Lenskyj, 1986; Uhlir, 1987), and the gains made in the last two decades owe much to the efforts of feminists, both inside and outside sport. However, the situation of lesbians in sport has only recently received attention in academic and professional sport circles, and then only as one aspect of sportswomen’s private lives for which they …
Combating Homophobia in Sport and Physical Education
The discrimination experienced by women in sport in North America has been well documented (e.g., Hall, 1987; Lenskyj, 1986; Uhlir, 1987), and the gains made in the last two decades owe much to the efforts of feminists, both inside and outside sport. However, the situation of lesbians in sport has only recently received attention in academic and professional sport circles, and then only as one aspect of sportswomen’s private lives for which they …
Inside the Olympic Industry
When Winners Are Losers
This is an analysis of events surrounding the Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia Olympic bid processes, with a specific focus on corporate and media attempts to manufacture public consent, and individual and group accommodation and resistance to such attempts. Print materials, including the official publications of the bid committees and newspaper coverage of events in both cities, constitute the primary source of data. It is argued that the t…
Power and Play
This exploration of gender and sexuality issues in sport identifies barriers to female participation that still remain despite the widely legislated equality of access to sport and physical activity. Various forms of sexual harassment, homophobia and abuse experienced by girls and women in sport and recreational contexts pose formidable barriers both to full female participation and to women's potential to develop and define sport in woman-center…
Sport and Corporate Environmentalism
This article examines the notion of sustainable sport in the context of preparations for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. More specifically, the article critiques the strategy of 'corporate environmentalism', which the organizers have deployed in their attempt to remediate the site of the Games
Beyond Plumbing and Prevention
This article offers a feminist critique of existing sex education policies and programmes in Canada, as well as examining common right‐wing arguments against more progressive approaches. Two major forces shaping adolescent girls’ developing sexuality—male sexual violence and compulsory heterosexuality—are discussed, and recent initiatives in Ontario to introduce these issues into sex education programmes evaluated. Toronto Board of Education's ne…
Reflections on Communication and Sport
In this essay, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj reflects on how heternormativity and gender identities have been characterized in sport media for more than a century. In light of these issues, Lenskyj reflects on why communication about sport may have particular importance in fueling heternormativity and a climate of homophobia. In reflecting on her journey as a scholar focused on the nexus of sport, gender, and media, Lenskyj notes that researchers have …
Inside Sport' or 'On the Margins
This article analyses the contradictory constructions of gender relations in the popular Australian sport magazine Inside Sport. The investigation shows that, while overt sexual exploitation of women is still present, particularly in the pictorial content, more complex marginalizing practices are also in evidence. Furthermore, it will be argued that the juxtaposition of critical text and exploitative graphics is organized to convey a sense of 'ba…
Female sexuality and women's sport
Measured time
Differences between men's and women's perceptions and experiences of time and leisure have implications for their approaches to sport and physical activities. The special circumstances of women's lives, in particular their responsibilities for domestic work and child care, contribute to a perspective that tends to be task-oriented rather than time-oriented, qualitative rather than quantitative, and altruistic rather than self-interested. Thus, wo…
Funding Canadian University Sport Facilities
Since the 1990s, students have been resisting the increasing corporatization of Canadian and American university campuses. More recently, administrative attempts to impose higher student activity fees to fund stadiums and other sporting facilities have been met with student opposition. In 2001, a referendum was held at the University of Toronto, Canada, on the issue of a mandatory student levy to fund a new stadium. This case study will be analyz…
Feminist Critiques of Physical Education
Sport mega-events and leisure studies
Sport mega-events exemplify the power of elitism, commercialisation and consumerism in leisure services. Progressive leisure studies researchers can influence sport and leisure policy by investigating the broader sociocultural impacts of sport mega-events on individuals and communities, with the goal of promoting sport and cultural democracy
Sydney 2000, Olympic sport and the Australian media
(1999). Sydney 2000, Olympic sport and the Australian media. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 23, Country and Calling, pp. 76-83
Whose sport? whose traditions? Canadian women and sport in the twentieth century
Olympic Ideals and the Limitations of Liberal Protest
Idealist rhetoric has served the interests of all players in the Olympic industry for more than a century, and continues to do so, despite global resistance campaigns and indisputable evidence of the International Olympic Committee’s self-serving hypocrisy. Much of this rhetoric has its origins in nineteenth-century Europe, as expressed by Coubertin, the founder of the modern games. In Western democracies, propaganda that invokes Olympic ideals a…
Femininity First. Sport and Physical Education for Ontario Girls, 1890-1930
Female sexuality and women's sport
Measured time
Differences between men's and women's perceptions and experiences of time and leisure have implications for their approaches to sport and physical activities. The special circumstances of women's lives, in particular their responsibilities for domestic work and child care, contribute to a perspective that tends to be task-oriented rather than time-oriented, qualitative rather than quantitative, and altruistic rather than self-interested. Thus, wo…
Common Sense and Physiology
Beyond Plumbing and Prevention
This article offers a feminist critique of existing sex education policies and programmes in Canada, as well as examining common right‐wing arguments against more progressive approaches. Two major forces shaping adolescent girls’ developing sexuality—male sexual violence and compulsory heterosexuality—are discussed, and recent initiatives in Ontario to introduce these issues into sex education programmes evaluated. Toronto Board of Education's ne…
Power and Play
This exploration of gender and sexuality issues in sport identifies barriers to female participation that still remain despite the widely legislated equality of access to sport and physical activity. Various forms of sexual harassment, homophobia and abuse experienced by girls and women in sport and recreational contexts pose formidable barriers both to full female participation and to women's potential to develop and define sport in woman-center…
Combating Homophobia in Sport and Physical Education
The discrimination experienced by women in sport in North America has been well documented (e.g., Hall, 1987; Lenskyj, 1986; Uhlir, 1987), and the gains made in the last two decades owe much to the efforts of feminists, both inside and outside sport. However, the situation of lesbians in sport has only recently received attention in academic and professional sport circles, and then only as one aspect of sportswomen’s private lives for which they …
Whose sport? whose traditions? Canadian women and sport in the twentieth century
Feminist Critiques of Physical Education
When Winners Are Losers
This is an analysis of events surrounding the Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia Olympic bid processes, with a specific focus on corporate and media attempts to manufacture public consent, and individual and group accommodation and resistance to such attempts. Print materials, including the official publications of the bid committees and newspaper coverage of events in both cities, constitute the primary source of data. It is argued that the t…
Sport and Corporate Environmentalism
This article examines the notion of sustainable sport in the context of preparations for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. More specifically, the article critiques the strategy of 'corporate environmentalism', which the organizers have deployed in their attempt to remediate the site of the Games
Inside Sport' or 'On the Margins
This article analyses the contradictory constructions of gender relations in the popular Australian sport magazine Inside Sport. The investigation shows that, while overt sexual exploitation of women is still present, particularly in the pictorial content, more complex marginalizing practices are also in evidence. Furthermore, it will be argued that the juxtaposition of critical text and exploitative graphics is organized to convey a sense of 'ba…
Sydney 2000, Olympic sport and the Australian media
(1999). Sydney 2000, Olympic sport and the Australian media. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 23, Country and Calling, pp. 76-83
Inside the Olympic Industry
Best Olympics Ever?, The
The best Olympics ever
Funding Canadian University Sport Facilities
Since the 1990s, students have been resisting the increasing corporatization of Canadian and American university campuses. More recently, administrative attempts to impose higher student activity fees to fund stadiums and other sporting facilities have been met with student opposition. In 2001, a referendum was held at the University of Toronto, Canada, on the issue of a mandatory student levy to fund a new stadium. This case study will be analyz…
Olympic Industry Resistance
"Scholar and activist Helen Jefferson Lenskyj continues her critique of the Olympic industry, looking specifically at developments in the post-9/11 and postbribery scandal era. Examining events and activism in host cities, as well as in several locations that bid unsuccessfully on the Olympics, Lenskyj shows how basic rights and freedoms, particularly of the press and of assembly, are compromised. Lenskyj investigates the pro-Olympic bias in medi…
Olympic Industry Resistance
Raising “Good Vigorous Animals”
Vitalist theories of physiology, together with notions of 'femininity' and 'masculinity,' helped to shape medical views and practices relating to children's health in Ontario at the turn of the century. In their pronouncements on sex-appropriate school programmes and curricula, doctors and medically-trained physical educators were influenced as much by socially constructed notions of the ideal feminine personality as by medical considerations suc…
The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies
A comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference collection, bringing together an authoritative and international line-up of scholars to examine key social and political issues related to the Olympics. An
Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies
Reflections on Communication and Sport
In this essay, Helen Jefferson Lenskyj reflects on how heternormativity and gender identities have been characterized in sport media for more than a century. In light of these issues, Lenskyj reflects on why communication about sport may have particular importance in fueling heternormativity and a climate of homophobia. In reflecting on her journey as a scholar focused on the nexus of sport, gender, and media, Lenskyj notes that researchers have …
Gender Politics and the Olympic Industry
This book explores how the Olympic industry has shaped hegemonic concepts of sporting masculinities and femininities for its own profit and image-making ends, examining its continuing marginalization
Sport mega-events and leisure studies
Sport mega-events exemplify the power of elitism, commercialisation and consumerism in leisure services. Progressive leisure studies researchers can influence sport and leisure policy by investigating the broader sociocultural impacts of sport mega-events on individuals and communities, with the goal of promoting sport and cultural democracy
Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (19 works) · Political science (18 works) · Gender Studies (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Olympics (6 works)