ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes discourses of risk and self-care surrounding the pregnant athlete in order to understand conflicting ideas about motherhood and strength sports. The pregnant athlete is a particularly interesting site of study because the maternal body is at odds with the traditionally male-driven apparatus of sport and serves as an inescapable reminder of women’s differences from men. In addition, these women are often caught between contradictory discourses and systems of thinking. On the one hand, their participation in strength sports posits that one can “master” the body and valorizes a culture in which physical pain and self-denial are expected. On the other hand, medical discourses situate pregnancy as a risk, a disease, or a crisis that one has little control over. Strength sports posit that risk is acceptable, even invited, while medicine assumes risk should be minimized and managed. Athletic discourses and an athlete’s familiarity with self-denying practices may therefore compel a woman to pursue behaviors or activities that conflict with the expectations of the medical community. This study therefore explores a range of anxieties surrounding the pregnant strength athlete in order to provide a critical commentary on contradictory ideas about motherhood, the maternal body, and the female athlete.
