Gender Expression in Athletics: Project Phase 1

Project Statement:

I am going to explore the balance of gender expression and athleticism in sports, specifically running, by investigating athletes and their relationship with their bodies and selves. I’m going to find the answers to my own questions about why I struggle to experience both femininity and athleticism simultaneously. These themes are based around standards of gender-based strength, both physically and emotionally, and how we form those judgements. 

I have been an athlete for my entire life and having grown up in the running world, I have seen first hand how unhealthy athletes’ relationships with their bodies and selves can get. I want to both investigate my own personal history and bring awareness to how exclusively gender-based our sport can get and how exclusionary that can be. By telling the stories of those affected by the gender-exclusivity of sport, I can help make running and athletics more inclusive and inviting.

PHASE 1

For the first phase of this project, I wanted to investigate the surface level experience of a runner’s body. The beautiful thing about running is that all bodies are runner bodies. Anyone can run and there is literally no physical requirement in our sport. As beautifully simple as that is, as runners we often completely overcomplicate it and make it far more physically exclusive and divided than it needs to be. 

There are many different levels to this division. To me, the largest two are the gender-based divide and the athleticism divide. In my project, I want to investigate both of these sides of the sport and their relationship with each other and the self. To me, that means deeply questioning and picking apart my continual struggle between femininity and athleticism. For so much of my life, I’ve struggled to embrace those two sides of myself simultaneously. Why is that? Perhaps it’s because expressions of athleticism are often based on physical strength and physical strength is not traditionally expressed in conjunction with traditional femininity. How silly this sounds, given the indescribable strength of women! 

This first photoshoot of the project was meant to scratch the surface of what it means to live in a runner’s body. We all do it, all day, every day. Sometimes it’s a struggle, sometimes a joy. Sometimes, and not often enough, I praise my body for the incredible feats it performs. Sometimes I put it through hell without a thank you. I bully it beyond belief, and then get angry when it stops working. 

One of the biggest topics I’m sifting through in this personal investigation is femininity within athletics in general, and most especially running. Ever since I started running competitively in middle school, I’ve been placing an abnormal amount of my personal identity and self worth on my running performances. Why do I feel the most comfortable expressing my femininity when my running is going well? This question and many more have been guiding my creative process as I begin this project. 

As I’ve been picking apart my relationship with running, I’ve had to work through how I view not only the sport, but also myself as a member of it. Who do I want to be as a runner? How can that work together with who I want to be in the world? Can I use my experiences and perspective to make the sport more inclusive? This project is my attempt at that. My teammates will help me tell the story.