Trained to be sexist: operationalizing institutional logics in the co-construction of gendered discourse in sport

ABSTRACT

Research Question

I enter the cultural processes of gender through operationalizations of the institutional logics that thread agency, structure, and the reproduction of dominant discourses. The research question that guided the design of my autoethnography was: How were gender logics co-constructed across my sport career?

Research Methods

Institutional logics as a method holds the potential to develop novel access points for deconstructing and disrupting dominant discourses. In an analytic autoethnography, I situate institutional logics as the organizing principles for the co-construction of gendered discourse in my story, as a former professional athlete and coach.

Results and Findings

I offer a selection of anecdotes written into a story, each operationalizing the co-construction of one of four dominant gendered logics: (a) ‘less than’, the primary overarching logic, (b) ‘conform socially’, (c) ‘protect girls’, and (d) ‘vision of value’, or projections of how my personality and potential should be harnessed.

Implications

The two most salient contributions to the literature from the autoethnography are (a) the nuance that emerged in the ‘vision of value’ logic, which evidenced a tension in how gendered visions of potential were imposed on talent that was valued for traditionally masculine characteristics, and (b) the disruptive and emancipatory potential of the proposed entry into the co-construction of sport discourse through the mechanisms of institutional theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• discourse
• autoethnography
• institutional logics
• agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).