Out of Play: Critical Essays on Gender and Sport

A revealing look at gender issues in contemporary sport.

From beer ads in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to four-year-old boys and girls playing soccer; from male athletes? sexual violence against women to homophobia and racism in sport, Out of Play analyzes connections between gender and sport from the 1980s to the present. The book illuminates a wide range of contemporary issues in popular culture, children?s sports, and women?s and men?s college and professional sports. Each chapter is preceded by a short introduction that lays out the context in which the piece was written. Drawing on his own memories as a former athlete, informal observations of his children?s sports activities, and more formal research such as life-history interviews with athletes and content analyses of sports media, Michael A. Messner presents a multifaceted picture of gender constructed through an array of personalities, institutions, cultural symbols, and everyday interactions.

Michael A. Messner is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California and is the author or editor of several books, including Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports and Paradoxes of Youth and Sport (coedited with Margaret Gatz and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach), also published by SUNY Press.