Gender Politics and the Olympic Industry (Palgrave Studies in the Olympic and Paralympic Games)

The purpose of the book is to identify and analyze the historical and contemporary connections between the Olympic industry and ways of doing gender, while at the same time taking into account the variables of social class, race/ethnicity and sexuality. For over 100 years, the Olympic industry has controlled global sport and shaped hegemonic concepts of sporting masculinities and femininities for its own profit and image-making ends. The potential for exploitation and cooptation of women and disadvantaged minorities is great, the benefits few by comparison. The Olympics have a long and disturbing history of marginalizing women, Black people and people of colour, athletes from developing countries, and sexual minorities. Successful alternatives organized by these groups demonstrate that other ways of doing sport and doing gender are both possible and preferable.