![\"sports-balancing-femininity-2\"](\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2009\/02\/sports-balancing-femininity-2-748x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSport is socially constructed.\u00a0 What counts as a “real” sport is determined by social convention, as any hard core cheerleader will tell\u00a0you.\u00a0 Sports\u00a0are also gendered and the degree to which an athletic activity is feminized correlates pretty closely with whether or not we feel it is a “real” sport.\u00a0 This translates into an interesting phenomenon in which excelling at athletic activities deemed feminine and not-really-sport includes obscuring the athleticism involved.\u00a0 That is, part of what it means to be a good athlete in that sport is to be able to hide exactly how athletic you are.<\/p>\n
Feder makes this point in her excellent article, “A Radiant Smile From A Lovely Lady.”\u00a0 She explains that female figure skaters are required to perform femininity and hide their athleticism with costume, make-up, feminine gestures, and softened movements.\u00a0\u00a0 One coach was quoted as saying, “I always tell my girls: think like a man, but act and look like a woman.”<\/p>\n
At the time\u00a0her article was published (1995), the U.S. and International Skating Union still called them “ladies” and\u00a0required them to wear skirts (after Debi Thomas wore a unitard at the Olympics, horror of horrors).\u00a0 Women were only allowed to do one triple jump (while men were required to do at least two) and they were disqualified if they did a back flip.<\/p>\n
Further, media coverage of women skaters tends to focus not on their physical prowess, but on their dreams, how beautiful they are, and their relationships… all drenched in soft lighting and pretty music.\u00a0 Feder quoted commentators saying that when women jump they “float like a leaf”; their jumps are “less like stunts than whitecaps bubbling out of waves.”<\/p>\n
What does Sasha Cohen have?\u00a0 “Unstoppable” strength?\u00a0 Oh.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 “Unstoppable charm.”<\/p>\n
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Because of ice skating’s reputation as a feminine not-sport, men who choose to figure skate are often subject to a lot of policing.\u00a0 Their masculinity is fundamentally called into question by their proximity to so much femininity.\u00a0 And, don’t forget,\u00a0this is a bad thing… or so we are led to believe.<\/p>\n
This, of course,\u00a0is sexist, homophobic, and illogical (tell me again why the guy with his hands all over the girl is gay?).<\/p>\n
I go over all of this because of a new campaign by Skate Canada to change ice skating’s image in response to the low participation of boys men in the sport.\u00a0 Instead of, however, challenging the misogyny, rigid masculinity, and irrationality of the “male ice skaters are gay” attack, they have decided to endorse the attack and simply re-frame ice skating as hypermasculine.<\/p>\n