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Play & Competition: An
Ideological Dilemma
Ch. 3 by Jan Rintala Pres.
NAGWS
In Women In Sport by Greta
Cohen, Ed., Notes by N. Bailey
Personal Context
Jan is a competitor. Loves to compete.
 Doctoral studies evoked cognitive
dissonance for her
 Feminist theoretical underpinnings v.
elitism of competitive social structure –
not just in athletics, but in most of our
social organizations and institutions

Feminist Analysis
Approach to knowledge includes:
 Critique of value-neutrality
 Recognizing context
 Question the reality of objectivity
 Assume there is a relationship
between the knower and the
phenomena of inquiry

Factors Influencing the
Author’s Presentation
Race, ethnicity, gender, social class,
disability, sexual orientation, age,
religion, & other social or experiential
Characteristics
 Reporting may be balanced, but there
remains bias or reflected subjective
experience

2nd Point in Feminist
Theory Used by Rintala
Those at the top get to name the
dominant ideas of a society.
 By virtue of their control of the major
institutions, the values and
perspectives of the top dogs are
filtered directly into society.
 Those ideas are interpreted as the
dominant cultural ideas

Sport & Competition
Defined for Now
Sport:
Institutionalized competitive activities
Vigorous physical exertion
Use of complex physical skills
Participation motivated by
combination of personal enjoyment
and external rewards
Competition: A Zero
Sum Game
If one individual or group attains the
goal, the goal or the reward is no
longer available to others
 Many sports excluded from
Rintala’s definition: scuba, biking,
climbing, shooting the rapids, etc.
 Definitions are for the purpose of
this discussion only.

Historical Context
Factors influencing support for or
against women’s sport: social class,
race, ethnicity, religious tenets,
proscriptions by the medical profession
& wars
 Cursory examination only. We could
do an entire course on this topic alone

Extent of Sport
Competition
Colonial period: Minimal
 1824: Catherine Beecher founded
the Hartford Female Seminary;
calisthenics stressed posture
exercises, light chest weights, wand
drills, & archery, swimming,
horseback riding for beauty, health
& increase the lifespan.

Early Wave of
Feminism

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Women demanded equal access to
education for upper class
Mostly recreational activities
1860’s: tennis, archery, and golf
tournaments
In colleges prior to 1900: bowling,
swimming, baseball, badminton, ice
hockey, track and field, field hockey, BB,
& VB
Women Physical
Educators Controlled
Men’s sports controlled by students
 Women “protected” female students
 Ladylike behavior
 Exercise that was not too vigorous
 Protected from the negative effects of
aggressive competition
 Stanford v. Berkeley BB, 1896

BB Ignited Change
Senda Berenson, 1892, introduced BB
for women. Intercollegiate competition
 Women get the vote in 1920, etc.
 Exercise now thought to be healthful
for women, except during menstruation
 Women’s concern also for excesses
and abuses occurring in men’s
intercollegiate sport

Abuses and Excesses
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Corrupt practices in recruitment
Violation of amateurism rules
Some student athletes ignored their studies
Aggression and violence lead to serious
injuries especially in football
Men organized rules governance; women
outlawed intercollegiate athletics
Ambivalence re: Forms
of Competition

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Two surveys: 1923 & 1930 – Mabel Lee
compared the contentious results
Pro arguments: healthful habits, social
skills, teach values related to winning
and losing, develop greater skill, vigor,
coordination, mental activity, opportunity
to play against other good players, learn
competition for life
Disadvantages of
Varsity Sport
Physical straining rather than training
 Emotional strain; girls too high strung
 May play during menstrual periods
 May neglect academics and other
social aspects of college life
 Winning at all costs may lead to
rowdyism
 Newspaper publicity may expose

Industry Sponsored
Sport by 1920’s to 60’s
Tennis, bowling, basketball, volleyball,
baseball, hockey, softball.
 10,000 women in bowling tournaments
 AAU Championships
 Sport organization championships
 Arguments, both pro and con
continued & AIAW was formed 1971 to
1982. Avoided abuses

Feminist Position on
Sport
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Mostly silent
Economic and social class issues brand
of feminism: Something Fundamentally
Wrong With Competition no matter where
it is:
Means of male dominance, class and
race dominance, some won lion’s share
of communal-social resources and
others only crumbs.
Competition Criticized
Generic: unethical and unhealthy when
outcomes emphasized too much;
 Aggression and violence
 Unsporting behavior: trash talking,
performance enhancing drugs,
cheating, playing while injured, lack of
fun; children negatively impacted if
less skilled; loyalty has disappeared

No Contest: The Case
Against Competition
Alfie Kohn, (1986): fails to build
character, poisons our relationships
with others, leads to aggression.
 The solution: elevate cooperative
ventures and work toward a noncooperative society

Three Schools of
Thought
Dualist Essentialist’s arguments
 Psychoanalytic arguments
 Behaviorist or social learning clearly
superior arguments 
 Can you spot the bias?

Dualistic Essentialism
All reality is in a dualistic structure,
“Either,or” al else doesn’t exist
 Ideas – objects;
 Mind – body;
 Reason – perception;
 Nature – nurture; Self – Other;
 Masculine – Feminine, etc.

Outcome of Dualism?
If one accepts this perspective, women
would experience conflict over
competition
 Competition would be contradictory to
the nature of women

Psychoanalytic Theory
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Task of development is to see herself as
separate from her mother
Because they share the same gender
identity, women may feel lifelong
struggle to establish separate identity
Not the case for boys
Women search for self in connection
with others & not distinguishing self
from others.
Outcome of
Psychoanalytic Theory
For women, differentiation can feel like
a threat to self-identity, and
competition is an exercise in
differentiation.
 For men, competition is in the service
of self as it helps men to self discovery
via differentiation

Behaviorist Analysis
Behavior is learned via socialization
 Competitive behavior is learned
 In relation to sport, boys and girls are
socialized differently: girls not helped
to develop skill and movement
competence as much as boys are

Behaviorist Outcome?

If girl has been socialized to believe
that competition is not ladylike or is
concerned that she may hurt
someone’s feelings, it would be logical
for her to experience conflict in a
competitive setting.
Arguments Continue
Mariah Burton Nelson, Embracing
Victory: Life Lessons in Competition
and Compassion
 Questionnaire, interview, anecdotal
data show same questions today
(N=1030)
 Athletes said: they were competitive,
expected to win,

More Nelson findings
Compared their achievements
favorably
 Were comfortable with competition
 52% of non-athletes were
uncomfortable with competition while
only 7% of athletes were
uncomfortable

Dilemma Resolvable?
Nelson’s data show many women
feeling no dilemma
 Where you see a contradiction, make
a distinction (N. Bailey via ?)
 There are actually multiple goals, not
just the goal of winning. So, both
winners and losers may achieve
 Focus on process & outcome

Solutions?
To cheat is not to compete.
 Call cheating a “not competitive”
behavior, thus those cheating in
competition are not actually
competing.
 So, cheating isn’t actually an abuse
found in competition. (p. 49) What???
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Support for the
argument
There is nothing inherent in sport that
requires dehumanizing the competition
 There need not be blatant disregard
for human civility in sport
 Value the process of competition:
optimal experience or peak experience
or Flow; Risk taking; friendships; self
competence;
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Are We Winning Yet?
Nelson’s “How Women are Changing
Sport and Sports are Changing
Women”
 Partnership model: vale process,
inclusion, and consideration for others
involved in the process.
 Deals with someone rather than
against. Champion v. Conqueror
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Jay Coakley: Two
Models
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Power and Performance Model
vs.Pleasure and Participation Model
Outcome, dominance, body as machine,
hierarchical authority structures, enemy
competitor vs.
People connections, personal
expression ethic, mutual concern,
support teammates and opponents,
empowerment, body as source of
pleasure, accommodate differences in
skill levels, with and not against others
To Escape A Dilemma?
Emphasize the one that seems most
important at the “moment”
 When competing in the Olympics, for
example, emphasize for the moment,
the outcome of the contest.
 At other times the process may
become more important
