Gender, Embodiment, and Self-Regulation: Surveillance in Canadian Intercollegiate Women’s Distance Running

Christine Carey

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.18.2.02

Authors

Christine Carey McMaster University, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4281-4873

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.18.2.02

Keywords:

Gender, Running, Surveillance, Embodiment, Foucault, Docile Bodies, Agency

Abstract

This article draws on data collected through semi-structured interviews with intercollegiate cross country and track athletes to investigate how female distance runners experience their sport concerning gender and embodiment. The runners identified gender as affecting their sport by way of shorter distances for women’s races, heightened involvement of coaches in corporeal matters such as diet and weight, as well as sex verification policies. Distance running was also specifically identified as a sport that intensifies societal pressures for women to be thin. Drawing on Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power, this paper explores how dominant discourses on gender and the body are reproduced within distance running through a combination of structural and cultural practices. However, the paper also highlights resistance to cultural ideals among female runners, calling for a more dynamic understanding of disciplinary power that accounts for individual agency.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Christine Carey, McMaster University, Canada

Christine Carey is a recent Ph.D. graduate from McMaster University’s sociology department. Her broad research interests include social problems, child welfare, and the sociology of sport. Her most recent research uses an interpretive approach to examine the trajectories and long-term impacts of individuals who have been in the care of a child welfare system.

References

Abbas, Andrea. 2004. “The Embodiment of Class, Gender and Age through Leisure: A Realist Analysis of Long Distance Running.” Leisure Studies 23:159-175.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0261436042000226354

Adler, Emily S. and Roger Clark. 1999. How It’s Done. An Invitation to Social Research. Toronto: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Google Scholar

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn and John Hockey. 2007. “‘Working Out’ Identity: Distance Runners and the Management of Disrupted Identity.” Leisure Studies 26(4):381-398.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02614360601053384

Amigot, Patricia and Margot Pujal. 2009. “On Power, Freedom and Gender: A Fruitful Tension between Foucault and Feminism.” Theory and Psychology 19(5):646-669.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354309341925

Barker-Ruchti, Natalie and Richard Tinning. 2010. “Foucault in Leotards: Corporeal Discipline in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.” Sociology of Sport Journal 27:229-249.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.27.3.229

Bartky, Sandra L. 2009. “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.” Pp. 25-45 in The Politics of Women’s Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance and Behavior, edited by R. Weitz. New York: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Beckman, Frida, ed. 2018. Control Culture: Foucault and Deleuze after Discipline. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474436779

Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar

Bridel, William and Genevieve Rail. 2007. “Sport, Sexuality, and the Production of (Resistant) Bodies: De-/Reconstructing the Meanings of Gay Male Marathon Corporeality.” Sociology of Sport Journal 24:127-144.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.24.2.127

Butler, Judith. 1997. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar

Cavanaugh, Sheila and Heather Sykes. 2006. “Transsexual Bodies at the Olympics: The International Olympic Committee’s Policy on Transsexual Athletes at the 2004 Athens Summer Games.” Body and Society 17:75-104.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X06067157

Chase, Laura F. 2008. “Running Big: Clydesdale Runners and Technologies of the Body.” Sociology of Sport Journal 25:130-147.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.25.1.130

Coakley, Jay. 2003. Sport in Society: Issues & Controversies. New York: McGraw Hill.
Google Scholar

Cooky, Cheryl and Shari Dworkin. 2018. “Policing the Boundaries of Sex: A Critical Examination of Gender Verification and the Caster Semenya Controversy.” Pp. 37-53 in No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change, edited by C. Cooky. Ithaca, NY: Rutgers University Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1t6p7fx.5

Cooky, Cheryl, Ranissa Dycus, and Shari L. Dworkin. 2018. “‘What Makes a Woman a Woman?’ versus ‘Our First Lady of Sport’: A Comparative Analysis of the United States and the South African Media Coverage of Caster Semenya.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 37:31-56.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723512447940

Davis-Delano, Laurel R., April Pollock, and Jennifer E. Vose. 2009. “Apologetic Behaviour among Female Athletes: A New Questionnaire and Initial Results.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 44:131-150.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690209335524

Dworkin, Shari. 2001. “Holding Back: Negotiating a Glass Ceiling on Women’s Muscular Strength.” Sociological Perspectives 44:333-350.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2001.44.3.333

Dworkin, Shari and Faye L. Wachs. 2009. Body Panic: Gender, Health and the Selling of Fitness. New York: New York University Press.
Google Scholar

Eliasoph, Nina and Paul Lichterman. 2004. “Culture in Interaction.” American Journal of Sociology 108(4):735-794.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/367920

Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226206851.001.0001

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Vol. I, An Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 1988a. Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-1984. New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. 1988b. “Technologies of the Self.” Pp. 16-49 in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, and P. H. Hutton. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel et al. 2009. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège to France 1977-1978. New York: Picador/Palgrave Macmillan.
Google Scholar

Glaser, Barney and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York: Aldine Publishing.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-196807000-00014

Hambleton, Brittany. 2021. “British Elites Oppose Gender Equity in Cross Country.” Canadian Running. Retrieved October 10, 2021 https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/british-elites-oppose-gender-equity-in-cross-country/
Google Scholar

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene. 1996. Am I Thin Enough Yet? The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Heywood, Leslie. 2011. “Hunger, Emotions and Sport: A Biocultural Approach.” Symploke 19(2-1):119-142.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.5250/symploke.19.1-2.0119

IAAF Policy on Gender Verification. 2006. International Association of Athletics Federations. Retrieved February 08, 2018 https://unique-sportstime.de/site/wp-content/uploads/iaaf_policy_on_gender_verification.pdf
Google Scholar

Javed, Asma et al. 2013. “Female Athlete Triad and Its Components: Toward Improved Screening and Management.” Mayo Clinic Proceedings 88(9):996-1009. doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2013.07.001.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2013.07.001

Krebs, Paul et al. 2019. “Gender Differences in Eating Disorder Risk among NCAA Division I Cross Country and Track Student-Athletes.” Journal of Sports Medicine. doi: https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/5035871
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/5035871

Lenskyj, Helen. 2003. Out on the Field: Gender, Sport and Sexualities. Toronto: Women’s Press.
Google Scholar

Markula, Pirkko. 2003. “Technologies of the Self: Sport, Feminism and Foucault.” Sociology of Sport Journal 20:87-107.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.20.2.87

Markula, Pirkko and Richard Pringle. 2006. Foucault, Sport and Exercise: Power Knowledge and Transforming the Self. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar

McWhorter, Ladelle. 1999. Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Google Scholar

Medina, José. 2011. “Towards a Foucaultian Epistemology of Resistance: Counter-Memory, Epistemic Friction, and Guerilla Pluralism.” Foucault Studies 19:9-35.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i12.3335

Mewett, Peter C. 2003. “Conspiring to Run: Women, their Bodies and Athletics Training.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 38:333-349.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902030383005

Nattiv, Aurelia et al. 2007. “American College of Sport Medicine Position Stand. The Female Athlete Triad.” Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise 39(10):1867-1882.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0b013e318149f111

Nettleton, Sarah and Michael Hardey. 2006. “Running Away with Health: The Urban Marathon and the Construction of ‘Charitable Bodies.’” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 10(4):441-460.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459306067313

Oksala, Johanna. 2004. “Anarchic Bodies: Foucault and the Feminist Question of Experience.” Hypatia 19(4):99-121.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2004.tb00150.x

Oksala, Johanna. 2005. Foucault on Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597923

Quatromoni, Paula A. 2017. “A Tale of Two Runners: A Case Report of Athletes’ Experiences with Eating Disorders in College.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 117(1):21-31. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2016.09.032.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2016.09.032

Quinn, Michael A. and Stephanie Robinson. 2020. “College Athletes Under Pressure: Eating Disorders among Female Track and Field Athletes.” The American Economist 65(2):232-243. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0569434520938709
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0569434520938709

Rabinow, Paul and Nikolas Rose, eds. 2003. The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984. New York: New Press.
Google Scholar

Serravallo, Vincent. 2000. “Class and Gender in Recreational Marathon Running.” Race, Class and Gender 7:96-121.
Google Scholar

Shipway, Richard and Ian Jones. 2007. “Running Away from Home: Understanding Visitor Experiences and Behavior at Sport Tourism Events.” International Journal of Tourism Research 9(5):373-383.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.641

Smolak, Linda, Sarah K. Murnen, and Anne E. Ruble. 2000. “Female Athletes and Eating Problems: A Meta-Analysis.” International Journal of Eating Disorders 27:371-380.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-108X(200005)27:4<371::AID-EAT1>3.0.CO;2-Y

Strauss, Anselm L. and Juliet Corbin. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Google Scholar

Swami, Viren, Laura Steadman, and Martin J. Tovee. 2009. “Comparison of Body Size Ideals, Body Dissatisfaction, and Media Influence between Female Track Athletes, Martial Artists, and Non-Athletes.” Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10:609-614.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.03.003

Torstveit Monica K., Jan H. Rosenvinge, and Jorunn Sundgot-Borgen. 2013. “Prevalence of Eating Disorders and the Predictive Power of Risk Models in Female Elite Athletes: A Controlled Study.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports 18(1):108-118. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2007.00657.x
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2007.00657.x

Tulle, Emanuelle. 2007. “Running to Run: Embodiment, Structure and Agency amongst Veteran Elite Distance Runners.” Sociology 41(2):329-346.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038507074978