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"To know, more exactly, why it is that a woman can only muster 90 per cent of a man's strength cannot help us comprehend, explain, or change the massive feeling in our society that a woman has no business flexing her muscles anyways." (Willis, 1993)

Why can't we just get along?I recently commented on a blog that shall go unnamed (although you may be able to figure it out if you are a regular visitor of Women Talk Sports) in defense of cultural sport studies (more specifically women's media studies). I agreed with the blogger's main argument on injuries but disagreed with the need to attack other areas of research in order to raise the significance of one over the other. (I liken this scenario to bullies who put someone down to make themselves feel good.) For this I was taken to task. The "critiques" that followed demanded that I defend my defence because if I truly understood the significance of Topic A how could I rationally defend Topic B. Women's (sport) media studies were ripped apart for being theory based and lacking "fact-based evidence". As a student of (physical) cultural studies, I was slightly perturbed but not at all surprised given that sport studies, much like every other area, heavily privileges the "hard" sciences (e.g. biology, chemistry, physics) over the social sciences. I write this particular post not to advocate that social sciences are BETTER than other types of research and analysis, but to argue that WE NEED BOTH empirical based science and social science to work in tandem if we are to truly make any significant strides.


Tell someone that you are a human kinetics/exercise science student and the automatic response is: Oh are you going to be a physiotherapist? You mean like a gym teacher right? I am confident that many of you feel my pain. My response is generally, "No I don't touch people, or rats, I read books". Confusion is generally the look that follows with the question: "What are you going to do with that?" Heck if I know! Because realistically there is no industry for social scientists to enter that isn't academics. Predominantly, the 'hard' sciences study the HOW of things - How does the body move? How can we store more oxygen to run faster/longer? How does the physiology of men compare to the physiology of women? How do concussions happen? The social sciences study the WHY and WHAT of things - What does the body signify in our culture? Why are we concerned about young girls kickboxing? Why is there a prevalence of concussions in the NHL? Social/cultural studies always looks at the economic, social and political connections of a particular phenomenon. We are concerned with what x, y, and z mean to us as a society and a culture.


Which leads me to my second point, that anonymous blogger, to be identified as Bob, tore me a new one because I said that sports injuries are indeed political (in the way they are experienced, dealt with, who received treatment, what type of treatment). Bob said ACL injuries are not political, ask anyone who has had one. This follows a long line of people (such as Jesse Owens and Pete Sampras) who believe that sports and politics are not to mix. News flash - everything is political and sports is no different. This blog is political. The fact that I am typing it on a Mac has political, cultural, economic and social relevance. The readers of this blog are a political statement because everyone is a race, a class, a gender, a nationality, a sexuality, an able-ness, an age etc. etc. (And for this blog I postulate of a fairly common educational background and class.) You cannot separate one from the other and THAT is what cultural studies brings to the table. Hard sciences like to pull one thing out of its element to study it in a silo but the truth of the matter is that x,y, and z need to be a part of the whole to be fully understood. X in reality does not exist on its own, it is a part of an alphabet (if you will) and only as a member of that larger construction do we understand what it means by itself. What good is it to know that only 8% of sports coverage goes to women? The number by itself means nothing unless you are willing to theorize why that is so that you can change it or keep the status quo.


Riddell Concussion Monitoring HelmetGranted, theory gets a bad rap because it seems like a lot of thinking and not a lot of action. This is, for the most part, true but I would argue that a lot of that has to do with the fact that our field/work doesn't get a lot of respect. A few months ago on the Discovery Channel (Canada) they ran a documentary on concussions in hockey. Lots of scientists and experts were featured with fancy machines but not one was there to discuss the cultural relevance and significance of concussions. (I assume this is why Mythbusters is such a popular show, because people like to watch visual science over people sitting and discussing theoretical subjects.) The sciences have come out with a new football helmet that measures the amount of impact a player receives during a hit and it will tell you if you have a concussion. That's great - but its AFTER THE FACT. You already have a concussion. This is where we need to join forces (heaven for fend) and work together.


Easier said than done because lets face it there is a big gap between us. Even in my department we are split up academically and physically into biophysical studies, behavioural studies and socio-cultural studies. To which I ask - are we not, as humans, all of those things at the same time? So why are we segregated in our attempts to advance the human condition?


We are, as the cliche says, opposite sides of the same coin. Without the other side, we do not receive our full worth; but together we have value. After all, despite the fact that we are on different sides of the fence we predominantly sit where we do because we love sports and we want to make it better. This fight isn't a competition.

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There are 2 comments on this post. Join the discussion!

stephaniemp says:

This is a great post! I didn't get a chance to read the original post you referred to (I will) but I understand your point on the matter and am always happy to hear when people try to understand the value of the "other side" as you did. I'm entering my media studies program (focusing on women's sports in the media) in the fall. If you have any advice for me, sent it my way :)

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 9:51pm EDT

Resident_Badass says:

Hi Stephanie, thank you for your comments! In many ways, i came from the 'other side' so I had to learn very quickly the values of the 'new side'. Its hard playing both sides of the fence but I think its necessary because the only time anything really changes is when you get people to change their opinion. Hmmm Advice concerning women's sports media - that's a tough one because its quite a saturated field, in my opinion, with respect to the fact that there's LOTS of literature/research on how 'women are represented less than men in the media' but not a lot of answers or practical solutions as to how we can change that. Lots of the solutions that we come up with, and I include myself in this, sound great but don't work because society isn't ready or its just too complex of a situation for one universal answer. We're talking a lot about social norms and society is used to seeing men everywhere so I think its a difficult task to subversively create space for women to stand on their own WITHOUT it coming across as anti-man. But if you can do that - I think you've got a good shot! Hope that helps :)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 3:32pm EDT

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