ABSTRACT
The hegemonic discourses about women in general, and sports in particular, are rooted in White men’s social construction of femininity and beauty. Characterizations of beauty and femininity have shifted over time but consistently remain rooted in external features as a measure for determining which women are worthy of being perceived as “beautiful” and “feminine.” For instance, famed model and actress Marilyn Monroe is noted as having “ample portions”; more specifically, she was depicted as a “clean-cut, American, wholesome girl-too plump, but in a beautiful way” (Spoto, 1993, p. 95). A contemporary model is typically 5'9" with a dress size between a zero and six (Mears and Finlay, 2005). While the physical size standards of modeling have changed, the dominant White male European standards that control the images and belief systems surrounding beauty and femininity have not. In both historical and present day contexts, the white, heteropatriarchal ideology of beauty and femininity rarely if ever includes images of Black women. As a result, Eurocentric perceptions related to Black women and femininity either position these women as invisible or not beautiful “enough.” These perceptions may also prompt Black women to harbor negative conceptions about themselves and their counterparts.
