Hetero-sexing the athlete: public and popular discourses on sexuality and women’s sport in South Africa
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Date
2018
Authors
Engh, Mari Haugaa
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
On the African continent sport has, particularly in the last two decades, been hailed as a useful tool in
the quest for nation building and social cohesion. A popular claim is that sport has a particularly powerful
role to play in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. Yet what often remains silenced in
assertions about the benefits and potentials of sport, are the ways in which sport also produces and sustains exclusion, frequently along sex/gender and racial lines. Sport has social and cultural significance precisely because it provides an avenue for the reproduction of normativities of embodiment, gender and sexuality. In this article, we critically examine how South African discourses on sport reproduce heteronormative and racialised ideas about women’s sport and women athletes. Focusing in particular on representations of South African women’ athletes, we raise questions about the type and form of visibility that is afforded South African sportswomen. Using examples of public debates and media coverage regarding three South African women athletes –Eudy Simelane, Caster Semenya and Portia Modise – we argue that three representational regimes shape discussions of gender, sexuality and women’s sport
in South Africa; annihilation, domestication, and expulsion.
Description
Keywords
Acta Academica, Sexualities, Gender, Homophobia, Women's sport, South Africa
Citation
Engh, M. H., & Potgieter, C. (2018). Hetero-sexing the athlete: public and popular discourses on sexuality and women’s sport in South Africa. Acta Academica: Critical views on society, culture and politics, 50(2), 34-51.