On “Gaze” in Sport Gender Studies

Abstract

　This paper, positioned in a discussion of the special edition about “The Theoretical Gender Gaze and a Shaken Body,” reveals how gender studies in sport have directly claimed the term “gaze,” by surveying earlier works on sport representation in media. Critics of media and gender studies in sport have assumed the media to take a “male gaze,” and have criticized gender bias in media that emphasizes the femininity of female athletes. This “male gaze” is based on the asymmetrical connection between “a seeing man” and “a spectacular woman.” Recently however, phenomena that cannot be captured by the term “male gaze” have been spreading due to the popularization of the internet and the rise of sport marketing. If gender studies in sport continually accepts the idea of a “male gaze” without understanding the multifaceted nature of contemporary sport, it ironically clarifies that “the gaze” should stick to the very gender binary which has been criticized in gender studies.
　The present world of sport is diversified, complicated, and hierarchized. The positioning of sexual minorities in sport remarkably exemplifies this. Some sexual minorities have been allowed to enter and compete in the Olympic Games under strict conditions. However, they force such athletes to change and process their material bodies, suggesting the need for special regulations for sexual minorities. In addition, there is the possibility for sexual minorities to be hierarchized by political, cultural, and economical power. The gendered theoretical “gaze” is increasing in significance and subtleness, and as such can be better used to criticize the complicated world of gender and other factors in sport.