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MULTIPLE BODIES

Sportswomen, Soccer and Sexuality

The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Shona Thompson

The University of Auckland, New Zealand

This study explores how female soccer players experience their bodies within the discourses of sport, gender and heterosexuality. Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, the research focused on a team that competed in a premier women's league in New Zealand. The findings indicated that the players underwent four distinct, yet interconnected, bodily experiences. This suggests that the use of a multiple body perspective enables a more subtle understanding of women's experiences in sport. The findings also indicate that the possibility of seeing one's body as being constituted differently by these multiple discourses may be a liberating experience, in that it allows women to access a diversity of feminine practices.

Key Words: body • femininity • heterosexuality • lesbianism • women's soccer

International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 35, No. 1, 5-20 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/101269000035001001


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