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Sportswomen as ‘biocultural creatures’: understanding embodied health experiences across sporting cultures

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Abstract

Over the past decade, a critical mass of feminist scholars has been working to develop new ways of understanding the complex interactions between the social and biological body. Working broadly under the umbrella of ‘new materialisms,’ a subgroup of feminist scholars is proposing alternative non-dualistic models for engaging with biology, corporeality, science, and matter. In this study, we take inspiration from this body of literature, and particularly Samantha Frost’s recent concept of ‘biocultural creatures’ to explore the complex entanglements between sporting cultures and women’s biological bodies. In conceiving of biology differently, this study reveals the dynamism and plasticity of the biocultural sporting body and reveals sportswomen as active agents in these processes. Interviews with sportswomen in two different sporting cultures—endurance multi-sport events (triathlon and Ironman) and rugby sevens—offer rich insights into how different body ideals, physical requirements, support structures, and performance cultures intra-act with women’s biological bodies, and particularly their embodied experiences of the health condition known as Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S). Ultimately, this study reveals sportswomen as biocultural creatives, “constantly composing, decomposing and recomposing” (Frost 2016, p. 149) in response to their engagement with distinctive sporting habitats.

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Notes

  1. The proposal to transition from FAT to RED-S has not been uncontroversial, with key proponents of FAT actively arguing against the renaming, thus highlighting the politics of medical terminology and diagnosis (Marcason 2016).

  2. After several years of exceptional performances on the world stage, in 2018, the team began receiving substantial financial investment from Rugby New Zealand, with a complete training, coaching, and support staff, as well as participating in multiple research projects.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for their excellent feedback on an earlier version of this paper. We are also grateful to the sport scientists and nutritionists involved in the larger project (Stacy Sims, Katherine Black, Dane Baker, and Katie Schofield). Thank you for working with your sociologist colleagues and embarking on this transdisciplinary journey into the unknown with us! Finally, our deep gratitude to the athletes who so generously gave their time and shared their lived experiences of their biocultural sporting bodies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Te Huataki Waiora/School of Health at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Holly Thorpe & Julie Brice

  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Marianne Clark

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  1. Holly Thorpe
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Correspondence to Holly Thorpe.

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Thorpe, H., Clark, M. & Brice, J. Sportswomen as ‘biocultural creatures’: understanding embodied health experiences across sporting cultures. BioSocieties 16, 1–21 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-019-00176-2

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