Lois Bryson

Sport and the maintenance of masculine hegemony

Abstract Sport is a crucial arena in which masculine hegemony is constructed and reconstructed. The effects of sporting activity are usefully analyzed in terms of two major dimensions. Those that relate directly to men, and those that serve dominant interests less directly, though no less effectively, through inferiorizing women and their activities. Processes through which sport directly supports male dominance are ones which associate males and maleness with valued skills and the sanctioned use of aggression/force/violence. Sport celebrates the dominant form of masculinity, though it must be noted that as well as women, some men are also excluded. This monopolization process is completed by a series of concrete processes which exclude women from the terrain completely, or if they do manage to pass through the barriers, effectively minimizes their achievements. Four concrete processes are considered and illustrated from the Australian sporting scene, those of definition, direct control, ignoring, and trivialization. It is necessary to understand these processes if we are to develop strategies to circumvent them. The mere fact that it is necessary for these processes to be continually invoked demonstrates that there are contradictions which can be exploited.

Sport and the Oppression of Women

Recent analysis of sexism in sport has tended to take a simplistic view of the situation based on the assumption that if equal numbers of women and men played sport, then equality would have been achieved; a rather similar assumption to the equal opportunity view of education and paid employment. However, if we are to take the issue seriously, we must realise that the relationship between sport and gender inequality is much more complex than this. This paper attempts to tease out some of the ways in which sport contributes to male dominance in general, rather than merely to the perpetuation of sports own internal, unequal structure. It is suggested that sport serves to ritually support an aura of male competence and superiority in publicly acclaimed skills, and a male monopoly of aggression and violence. A corollary of this is an inferiorisation of women and their skills, and their isolation from the ultimate basis of social power—physical force. These effects act to support patriarchal ideology and are usefully seen as occurring through a process which Lukes, following a well established sociological tradition, designates as the mobilisation of bias.

Gender Divisions and Power Relationships in the Australian Family

‘Diary of a Mad Househusband’ was the title of an article which was reprinted in the Sydney Morning Herald (31 March 1983), having appeared earlier in The Guardian. It began with the observation that ‘more men are taking over house and children while their wives go out to work’, and proceeded to list the tribulations of a househusband involved in what would have once been called a ‘role reversal’ situation. Today, sociologists tend to avoid this term because it implies that the traditional male and female roles are somehow fixed and given, whereas there is no reason to assume that childcare is a female occupation, which males only undertake through taking on a female role.

Gender, Social Control and Community Services

This article is concerned with social control and explicitly with gender dimensions of social control, explored through the work ings of a state welfare bureaucracy. The data on which the analysis is based were collected as part of a study of welfare clients who had had contact with Victorias state welfare depart ment. As well as the more conventional range of welfare services, at that time the departments responsibilities included both adult and juvenile correctional services. This combination of responsibilities provided a valuable environment in which to study gender characteristics as these were set in particularly high relief. Males were associated with the correctional side of the department while females were involved with a range of activities though almost always related to their roles as mothers. All subjects of the research were living in the community and all were serviced by the same staff and facilities. Very clear differ ences along traditional lines emerge highlighting the centrality of the gender dimension for understanding the social control mechanisms of the welfare state.

How Academic is an Academic Trade? A Response to Turner:

Turner’s paper has the hallmarks of a paper for a ritual occasion. The intention seems to be to provoke, rather than present a carefully supported argument The author has apparently attempted to seize the opportunity to establish his credentials in Australia as a forceful critic. Because of this obvious intent, the paper itself should not be taken too seriously. There is not much point in asking the myriad questions that cry out for substantiation. For example, how does one demonstrate that sociology has ’more sacred cows than other academic institutions’; or that ’orthodox loyalty to

Poverty, Welfare and Hegemony, 1973 and 19781

This paper is intended as a further contribution to this debate, specifically in relation to dominant ideas about welfare and poverty; it is an attempt to fathom the depth of bourgeois hegemony in this arena. As Williams has pointed out, hegemony depends for its hold not only on its expression of the interests of a ruling class but also on its acceptance as ’normal reality’ or ’commonsense’ by those in practice subordinated to it (1976: l18). That is, the dominant ideology must be made up of a set of beliefs and values by which people make sense of their every day lives. Here we shall consider the

Book Reviews : WHY WOMEN DON'T HAVE WIVES: PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS AND MOTHERHOOD. Terri Apter. London, Macmillan, 1985. 194 pp.

been in, and who could have been left out. This is an amorphous collection, which makes such a discussion the more inevitable. The existing papers certainly add up to a strong case against technological determinism and usefully illustrate the centrality of the social. Readers trained in sociology, who may take this for granted, are likely to be disappointed. It is hardly radical to claim priority for social explanations. Despite the refrain of social, socia4 questions about the prevailing modes of the operation of power are curiously lacking. This is conceded in the final section on ’Other areas of study’ where some gaps and alternative organising themes are briefly discussed: control, energy, transport and information. These have been omitted, the editors argue, either because the research is in its infancy or because the bulk of the literature is concerned with effects. This is particularly unconvincing given the broad and extremely useful reading list with which we are provided. In fact the material in the book has been selected as neo-Marxist or consistent with