The beauty of basketball: the WNBA, lesbians, and discourses of deflection.
This study traces strategies used by the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), in its public communications, to control and deflect any negative associations between its league and assumptions of lesbianism among sportswomen. Women in sport have long struggled to overcome assumptions...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2006
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Static URL is not available. In OregonPDF, search for the Author using the All tab. Static URL is not available. In OregonPDF, search for the Author using the All tab |
| Summary: | This study traces strategies used by the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), in its public communications, to control and deflect any negative associations between its league and assumptions of lesbianism among sportswomen. Women in sport have long struggled to overcome assumptions of sexual deviancy, and, as the longest-running professional women's sports league in history, the WNBA is a strong case for extending the study of these efforts . From an examination of newspaper coverage of the league, and from six interviews with journalists and WNBA officials, four discursive strategies are proposed: invocation of the private sphere, emphasis on femininity, distinctiveness within similarity, and promotion of purity. Based on these findings, a fifth discourse is proposed: responding to the public. While the privatizing and feminizing of WNBA players has deflected public attention away from assumptions of lesbianism, thus reinforcing hegemonic notions of female athletes, the league's emphasis on the distinctiveness and purity of WNBA players has offered new means to understand women in sport. Finally, a trend of responding to the public may increase in WNBA discourse as commercial pressures intensify in professional sports. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | [Advisor:] Domke, D. |
| Physical Description: | 112 pp |
