Female Boarding Bodies Betties Babes and Bad Asses 1 The labels sex sex role gender and gender role have differing meanings sex dichotomous anatomical distinctions between male and female based on genetically determined physiological characteristics sex role public role circumscribed by biology anatomy sexuality gender psychological and cultural dimensions of masculine and feminine gender role describes masculine or feminine attitudes and behavior as designated by a given society specific changing cultural context 1 Human culture channels innate sex differences into unique patterns of social functions 2 For the most part biologically influenced sex differences have historically been assumed to be universal inevitable and are used by cultures to justify social economic etc inequality of sexes 3 All societies in some fashion treat males and females differently studies emphasize that socialization and enculturation structure gender roles from conception birth onward 4 Great changes in human economic production thought and creativity have changed sex roles in societies Canon logic hegemony Canon established body of literature or way of understanding considered important enduring timeless Sports canon fit young male team football basketball baseball Gender logic Perspectives and ideas favored and promoted by dominant powerful groups in society seem to be natural or commonsense Hegemony power or dominance of a value belief idea norm custom etc Unlike many modern and some alternative sports women participated in early snowboarding Thorpe p 139 Gendered habitus social construction of masculinity and femininity defines how body is perceived forms body s habits determines individual s identity p 154 Gender agency and reflexivity Thorpe Chap 6 Possibilities for Bourdieu to be used to study gender Critique of Bourdieu s understanding of gender in regard to habitus field capital Specific mapping of females and gender in snowboarding Bourdieu Habitus everyday practices dispositions appreciations tastes inculcate a specific orientation onto the body embodiment embodied internalized Novice and core boarders styles of participation performativity Capital Field These three generate practices the cultural boarding body in action Capital different forms of power held by people institutions agents examples economic wealth cultural artistic taste linguistic vocabulary and pronunciation social social connections academic degrees qualifications corporeal physical attractiveness symbolic also called distinction prestige Field structured but also highly fragmented system of social systems and power relations home family workplace different sport cultures ski resort different countries positions within fields novice weekend warrior athlete event organizer film maker Thorpe p 161 Different tastes distinctions about gender and femininity in fields Practice distinctions in the snowboarding body including use of various kinds of capital Small exercises of power that display femininity within the field feminize style of clothing performance language p 165 Embodied practices involve investment and negotiation Do these little acts overthrow dominating social structures p 165 Mapping Critique Social change Sochi Olympic Games 2014 many snowboard females wear their hair long as another subtle marker of femininity Thorpe p 165 Sochi 2014 Slopestyle limitations aren t put on women from the get go Canadian snowboarder Spencer O Brien told the Toronto Star Olympic gold medal winner Jamie Andersen told the Denver Post in an interview last year she didn t want women to be relegated to a different course from the men in spite of difficult courses I think it s pretty cool that we get to ride with the guys and that these jumps are doable for us Sochi 2014 Slopestyle Athletic trainers and coaches say that by having men s and women s teams share the course they can share information among teammates They do those training runs as a team and often inspect the course as a team Not just the men s team and there s a unique and specialized exchange of ideas Michael Silk Anthony Bush David L Andrews 2010 the physical is a complex multilayered site replete with numerous types of events that can and do happen the product and producer of numerous overlapping systems and discourses economic political aesthetic demographic regulatory spatial that create a bewilderingly complex and dynamic social totality The physical is absolutely central Silk Bush Andrews continued it is the site the event the moment at which social divisions i e those based on class ethnic gender ability generational national racial and or sexual norms are imposed experienced and at times contested We are thus driven to understand the complexities experiences and injustices of the physical cultural context engaged on and through the body particularly with regard to the relations operations and effects of corporeal power sports is much more than facts it is also an arena for establishing or challenging the meanings associated with sex differences McDonagh Pappano 2008 Playing with the Boys p 154 Imagine sport in a way that differences between male and female bodies sport styles no longer matter in a modernist binary sense Or Emphasize and celebrate differences between male and female bodies in sport Ideas about femininity are reproduced challenged or disrupted through the body and sites like sport Unapologetic claim space in masculine environment out rightly and without symbolic apology Subversive femininity ignore conventional ways of doing gender playfully and self consciously being subversive and rebellious Bourdieu s ideas may seem deterministic concerning gender but still his ideas have use and promise as shown by Thorpe