Introduction and linking of papers

Female contact sports are often viewed as going against gender roles in society (Gill, 2007;
Thing 2001; Yep, 2010) due to the violence and aggression involved. Women in Yep (2010)
and Gills’ (2007) studies see this as an empowering notion, allowing them to fight against
dominant forces in society physically, by using their bodies to fight against opponents, and
emotionally, by allowing them to display traditionally masculine emotions such as aggression
and violence (Thing, 2001). Despite this, female athletes in contact sport are often more than
not, still bound by the stigma which society imposes against them, marginalizing them in
some way (Gill, 2007). Media plays a mediating role in defeating or reinforcing the
aforementioned stigma by representing female contact sports (Poniatowski & Hardin, 2012).
It is the mixture of these factors which ultimately affect the choice of female athletes to
socialize into contact sports. There is currently a gap in the literature on how the above
concepts relate to Singapore. My paper aims to understand how contact sports for women in
Singaporean is viewed and constructed by the media, society and the female athletes
themselves, and thus the factors which encourage and inhibit young athletes from choosing to
do contact sports in their specialization phase.

1. Gill, F. (2007). ‘Violent’ femininity: Women rugby players and gender

negotiation. Womens Studies International Forum, 30(5), 416-426.
doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2007.07.007
Gill’s study discusses how violent female sports such as rugby (a sport traditionally
regarded as men’s) renegotiate power relations and gender roles. Through
ethnographic research, she identifies how women in rugby are marginalized and
denied membership in their local communities due to inability to internalise and
perform appropriate actions relating to their gender. These female athletes challenge
the dominant power and view that women should take accept sexual harassment and
assault by physically and emotionally disrupting the “relationship between
masculinity and violence”, holding both a feminist and criticalist view. She concludes
that participation in such a sport results in increased self-confidence, changing
women’s response in social situations, empowering them to reject the existing gender
identities. Society aims to control such women, deeming them as “unruly”. This is an
interesting concept to apply to Singapore, where there are conservative views on
gender roles and where many yearn for social acceptance.
 2. Thing, L. F. (2001). The Female Warrior. International Review for the Sociology
of Sport, 36(3), 275-288. doi:10.1177/101269001036003002

Thing, in the paper, studies how female athletes in soccer, basketball, and ice hockey
(contact sports) experience traditionally masculine emotions such as aggression and
competitiveness and thus how they feel playing contact sports. In her fieldwork-based
inquiry, she observes the athletes’ training and conducts interviews. She asserts that
athletes see these sports as opportunities to defy expectations placed on them in everyday
life, a concept previously touched on by Gill. Thing concludes that “Play-Aggression”
(Thing, 2001, p. 281) is not only expected but encouraged in this context. She, however,
questions the ability of sports to empower as women still subscribe to social rules. For
instance, outside the stipulated context of contact sport, displaying aggressive behaviour
is still frowned upon. She highlights contact sport as a specific context due to the integral
part contact plays in forging social bonds between opponents, allowing for aggression.
Similarly, my paper will investigate how the Singaporean female athletes in contact
sports view aggression, and its ability to empower.

3. Yep, K. S. (2010). Playing Rough and Tough: Chinese American Women

Basketball Players in the 1930s and 1940s. Frontiers: A Journal of Women
Studies, 31(1), 123-141. doi:10.1353/fro.0.0072

Yep highlights the role of basketball in helping female athletes “define their version of
femininity” (Yep, 2010, p.123). Society’s view of these women as “loyal” (Chun, 2000, p.91)
was not internalized by the athletes, who recounted through interviews how their strength,
stamina and toughness were defining factors of their own identities, without making
reference to these as masculine attributes. However, society classifies these athletes as
“tomboys” and not women, thus making them socially acceptable (Hult, 1994, p. 91).
Regardless, the sport helped them find self-respect in a society which constantly puts them
down, with the physical nature of the sport being a way for them to draw strength from the
discrimination they faced on a daily basis. Many women socialized into the sport via key
agents, leading to the formation of a healthy nurturing community with their own space. In
Singapore, I plan to understand the extent to which contact sports empower women and the
factors which help women socialize into the sport.
 4. Poniatowski, K., & Hardin, M. (2012). “The More Things Change, the More
They …”: Commentary During Womens Ice Hockey at the 2010 Olympic
Games. Mass Communication and Society, 15(4), 622-641.
doi:10.1080/15205436.2012.677094
Poniatowski and Hardin, through textual analysis of commentary of ice hockey, analyse how
violent sports for women are portrayed and constructed by media. Female versions of contact
sports are constructed to be inferior (Stevens, 2006; Theberge, 2000), leading to these sports
being portrayed as less exciting and attracting fewer media coverage. She asserts that women
are underrepresented and misrepresented in media, which creates and reinforces “gender
differences” (Poniatowski & Hardin, 2012, p.626) in sport. Media emphasizes “sex-
appropriate” sports which reflect gender ideals, such as contact sports for men as opposed to
women (Kinnick, 1998, p. 215). She asserts that the constant comparison of female to male
athletes result in men dominating the space and implies they should strive to be more like
male counterparts. This, however, is changing as both women and men are being constructed
as role models. My study will discuss how the media influences the way which society and
athletes view contact sports and how this affects their choice to socialize into it.

References

Chun, G. (2000). Of Orphans and Warriors, 20–21, and Espiritu, Asian American Women
and Men, 91.

Hult J. S. (1994). “The Story of Women’s Athletics: Manipulating a Dream, 1890–1985,” in

Women and Sport: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics,
1994), 89.

Kinnick, K. N. (1998). Gender bias in newspaper profiles of 1996 Olympic athletes: A

content analysis of five major dailies. Women’s Studies in Communication, 21, 212–
236.

Stevens, J. (2006). Women’s hockey in Canada: After the ‘‘gold rush’’. In D. Whitson & R.
Gruneau (Eds.), Artificial ice: Hockey, culture, and commerce, 85–100. Peterborough,
Ontario, Canada: Garamond.
Theberge, N. (2000). Higher goals: Women’s ice hockey and the politics of gender. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press.