Record: 1

Title: Privileging Difference: Negotiating Gender Essentialism in U.S.

Women's Professional Soccer.
Authors: Allison, Rachel1 (AUTHOR) rallison@soc.msstate.edu
Source: Sociology of Sport Journal. Jun2021, Vol. 38 Issue 2, p158-166. 9p.
1 Chart.
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: *WOMEN'S soccer
*GENDER
*WOMEN athletes
*WOMEN'S sports
*SOCIAL conditions of women
*ATTORNEY-client privilege
*GENDER inequality
*GENDER essentialism
Abstract: Although women athletes in professional sport are uniquely
positioned to expose the limits of gender essentialist ideology and
challenge its relationship with inequality, little empirical research
has considered how professional women athletes understand and
negotiate gender ideologies. Drawing on 19 in-depth interviews and
one e-mail exchange with U.S. women's professional soccer
players, this article finds that sportswomen strategically endorse
constructions of gender difference while simultaneously
universalizing White, middle-class women's experiences.
"Privileging difference" is a narrative whereby players recognize
belief in women's physical inferiority to men and argue for women's
moral superiority to men as a source of value and reward for
women's sport. Sportswomen's moral authority is defined from a
position of racialized class privilege, as players construct an
idealized woman player who sacrifices material reward for
emotional satisfaction and who emphasizes future change over
present conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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1Mississippi
Author Affiliations: State University
ISSN: 0741-1235
DOI: 10.1123/ssj.2020-0016
Accession Number: 152000179
Database: Academic Search Premier