Book of Abstracts North American Society for the Sociology of Sport 2017 Annual Conference Windsor, Ontario, Canada November
Book of Abstracts North American Society for the Sociology of Sport 2017 Annual Conference Windsor, Ontario, Canada November 1-4 Age Matters: Canadian Hockey-style Masculinity Comes to Curling Kristi Allain, St Thomas University As Canadian baby boomers reach retirement age and the country becomes increasingly defined by its old(er) citizens, it is surprisingly rare to see the bodies of old(er) men on sports channels and in the newspapers’ sports sections. Men’s curlers have been a noteworthy exception to this trend. Men’s curling — with its focus on older men, hospitality, affability, and a lack of physical exertion — has always stood apart from men’s hockey — which often privileges aggressive and violent masculinity. However, since the Sochi Olympics, when the media heralded the curlers on Team Jacobs for bringing to curling a young, muscular style, a troubling shift has taken place. I argue that media representations of curling draw on both the language and values of Canadian hockey-style masculinity, showing how this results in the problematic erasure of curling’s once-unique form of Canadian sports masculinity. I discuss how curling and hockey connect to the Canadian consciousness and construct the nation as white and male. I then explain how curling’s privileging of non-athletic qualities such as sociability, makes it unique among Canadian sports. Thus, the emerging media discourse, which applies the norms of hockey masculinity to male curlers, demonstrates a complex social reordering of popular understandings of men who curl, and a “sweeping away” of an older, less aggressive masculinity. The Paradox of Professionalism: Elite Women Athletes Negotiate Gender Inequality in Sport Rachel Allison, Mississippi State University Based on interviews with 20 U.S.
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