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SPORT, THE MEDIA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY

A Case Study of Women's Rugby Union

University of Wollongong, Australia

Gill Clarke

University of Southampton, England

Media representations of sport are particularly powerful in naturalizing and normalizing hegemonic meanings about the body and social relations. While there is a considerable body of research that analyses how gender differences are constructed in media coverage of sport, much of this research does not question the hegemony of heterosexual relations. This article extends this research by exploring how print media representations of sport contribute to the denial of lesbian sexuality and social relations. Specifically, the article will demonstrate how choices in language and visual representations work to engage in a process of normalization whereby these female rugby union players playing a `man's game' are constituted in terms of hegemonic versions of heterosexual femininity.

Key Words: heterosexism • lesbian • media • rugby • sport

International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 34, No. 3, 227-243 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/101269099034003001


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