Jackie Hudson, Scholar

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Women in Sport Articles: Introductions

Movement is used in some way, to some degree, in every task accomplished by human beings. The need of every individual is to understand human movement so that any task--light or heavy, fine or gross, fast or slow, of long or short duration, whether it involves everyday living skills, work skills, or recreation skills--can be approached effectively. (Broer, 1960, p. 3)

Sports biomechanics is at the intersection of sports, biology, and mechanics. More specifically, the primary components of sports biomechanics are relatively vigorous physical activity, human anatomy and physiology, and matter and motion. The typical emphasis is on skillful and safe movement.

There are many perspectives or epistemological positions from which sports biomechanics can be approached. For example, a dualistic (either/or) thinker in sports biomechanics is likely to separate the biological from the mechanical and put a higher value on the mechanical. The result is that the body is replaced by a fragmented mechanical model and analyzed by reductionistic methods (described as using the narrow beam of a flashlight to illuminate one distinct object at a time (Starhawk, 1979)).

Another dualistic, or dichotomous, strategy is to separate sports biomechanics into so-called masculine and feminine aspects. Androcentric, or male-centered, scholarship focuses on such topics as men, mechanics, and Olympians. Gynocentric, or female-centered, scholarship focuses on such topics as women and children, biology or nature, and average and disabled movers.

Given that sports and science are viewed as "masculinity cults" (Hall, 1987), can there be a feminist sports biomechanics? Perhaps. At a minimum a feminist sports biomechanics would not value the androcentric approach over the gynocentric approach. Better still, a feminist sports biomechanics would replace the either/or emphasis of dualism with continua, conjunctions, and context. For instance, the falsely dichotomous categories of mobility and stability could be seen in terms of a continuum rather than in either/or absolutes. In addition, disjunct categories such as biology/mechanics and body/mind could be conjoined such that presumably polar pairs could cooperate. Finally, the contextual character of physical activity would be acknowledged. Sports biomechanics conducted from this perspective (i.e., connected or constructed knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986)) would explore problems of social concern such as the enhancement of health through safe and effective movement. Unfortunately, as Bleier (1988, p. 91) cautions, such a science may remain "utterly and profoundly invisible, except to feminists". (Excerpt in pdf)

The unquestioned presumption of the absolute physical inferiority of girls and women relative to boys and men has been used as a method of restricting female participation in many sports. Several myths and ill-founded arguments proposed for limiting athletic activity are also being used with respect to occupational activity.