Gender, Embodiment and Self-Regulation: Surveillance in Female Distance Running Subcultures

Abstract

<p>This thesis draws on data collected through semi-structured interviews with cross country and track athletes to investigate how female distance runners experience their sport in relation to gender and embodiment. The runners identified gender as affecting their sport by way of shorter distances for women’s races, heightened involvement of coaches in corporeal matters such as diet and weight, as well as sex verification policies. Distance running was also specifically identified as a sport that intensifies societal pressures for women to be thin. Grounded in Foucault’s concept of ‘docile bodies’, this thesis explores how dominant discourses on gender and the body are reproduced within the subculture of distance running through surveillance practices.</p>