ABSTRACT
The participation of young women, a social group identified as ‘under-represented’ in sport in general, has often been deemed problematic and thus targeted for intervention (Bennett, 2000; Kirk, 2000). Yet, recent feminist research has also demonstrated growth in the levels of intense commitment and skill demonstrated by female athletes participating at high levels of competition (Adams et al., 2005; Scraton et al., 1999; Theberge, 2003). Widespread achievements in women's sport have been used to argue that sport is now largely commensurate with the construction of active young femininities. Azzarito (2010) defines these new ‘alpha femininities’ as fit, healthy and achievement-oriented identities that girls are in creasingly able to take up. This article suggests that such discourses of female sporting achievement are complicated by social constructs of ‘ability’ as a highly gendered and thus discriminatory sorting mechanism. The girls’ experiences reveal the importance of ability discourses or ‘be ing good at sport’ as framing their decisions and investments in sport and physical activity.
