ABSTRACT

Introduction Writing on the sociology of war, Siniša Maleševic´ has written: ‘If there is one unique feature that sets war apart from all other sociological phenomena this must be its staggering gender asymmetry’ (2010: 275). In fact, there are other social phenomena that display stark gender disparities and imbalances, and sport is unambiguously one. But Maleševic´ is certainly correct to point to the deep connection between men, conflict and violence, which is also visible in sport. Until relatively recently, in all of its different guises, SRV has been almost exclusively the domain of males, and it is abundantly clear from earlier chapters that men continue to feature centrally in SRV. Indeed, the notion of masculinity itself exists in the very engineroom of SRV, and likely operates as a cause of many SRV behaviours. What makes things complicated is that no one monolithic version of masculinity is involved, and the fact that masculinity is not always a contributing factor. As with femininity and sexuality, masculinity comes in multiple, varied and overlapping forms, but one goal of this chapter is to highlight the most problematic versions of gender identity and the behaviours associated with them. A principal line of thinking offered here is that, especially as they manifest themselves in SRV as high-risk, victimizing and other excessive ways, dominant masculinities are ultimately counter-productive, victimizing not only women, but men themselves, both individually and as an entire gender class. However, the chapter also sets out to offer a balanced perspective on the relationship between SRV and forms of social ordering. As such, it considers the changing roles of women, and of femininity, in SRV, as well as discussing other ways that SRV is stratified, such as religion, age and social class.