Judith Butler Redux – the Heterosexual Matrix and the Out Lesbian Athlete: Amélie Mauresmo, Gender Performance, and Women’s Professional Tennis

'Pink Gloves Still Give Black Eyes': exploring 'alternative' femininity in women's combat sports

“…According to Judith Butler's [1990] theory of the heterosexual matrix, female athletes practicing such sports, which most often require them to forgo socially normalised constructions of femininity, risk having their status as 'real' women (often conflated with, but not reducible to, being heterosexual) called into question [Tredway 2014]. This is particularly so for women of colour, given the 2 At this point, we are cautious to emphasise the constructed nature of hierarchal gender binaries.…”

“…For such athletes, their non-conformity to orthodox visions of femininity may not preclude them from being socially recognised as women -often accomplished through a direct surveillance of their physical bodies [Jakubowska 2013;Pieper 2016] -but their discursive positioning as 'aberrant' or 'deviant' diminishes the symbolic value of their embodiment of apparently masculine qualities [Tredway 2014]. …”

From ‘philosophy of sport’ to ‘philosophies of sports’? History, identity and diversification of sport philosophy

“…While not forgetting earlier studies, like the ones of women in masculine sports (Postow 1980) and gender and sexuality in sport (Schneider 1995), recent articles have focused on topics that are part of the broader feminist culture testing gender borders and gender equality in various areas of life. Recent contributions by female sport philosophers show the diversity of the new testing, which include topics such as transgender women in sport (Bianchi 2017), gender equality in tennis (Davis and Edwards 2017), lesbian athletes and the heterosexual matrix (Tredway 2014), gender in fighting sports (Weaving 2014), gender and competition (English 2017), gender eauality in the Olympic movement (Koenigsberger (2017), sport and gender in Japan (Mizuho 2014), and the hot topic of 'equal play, equal pay' in soccer (Archer & Prange 2019).…”

The changing nature of lesbian athletes coming out in competitive organised team sports

“…As a result, they promptly lost sponsorship and gained negative media coverage (Forman & Plymire, 2005;Hargreaves, 2000). Since coming out in 1999, Amélie Mauresmo (retired professional tennis player) received negative coverage from her fellow players and came under intense scrutiny from all sections of society (Forman & Plymire, 2005;Tredway, 2014). Prior to coming out, the situation was no better; Hargreaves (2000) describes how Mauresmo regularly faced derogatory remarks with constant inferences that she was a lesbian.…”

“…In fact, rather than covering up Mauresmo's body, her clothing sponsors, Nike, Inc., actively encouraged her to reveal her muscular physique and designed clothing specifically to expose her athletic build (Forman & Plymire, 2005). This change in approach caused Tredway (2014) to re-examine the heterosexual matrix with its failure to acknowledge openly lesbian athletes. However, her adaptation fails to account for openly lesbian athletes who do not acknowledge their muscularity.…”