Speaking pictures, silent voices: female athletes and the negotiation of selfhood

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Publication date
2021
Author
Intezar, Hannah
Keyword
Female athletes
Selfhood
Identity
the body
Bakhtin
Rights
© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Abstract
Combining Mikhail Bakhtin's (1990) theoretical position on Architectonics and Erving Goffman's (1979) writings on visual content analysis, the aim of this paper is to explore how female athletes are caught in a complex matrix of power, post - feminist neoliberalism, and self - presentation. The visual images they choose to portray are, therefore, perfect for determining how this cohort of women negotiates social discourses around identity and femininity. Appropriating the Bakhtinian notion of architectonic unity, not only provides an alternative theoretical lens for enquiries concerning the body, identity, and selfhood, but also initiates some thought provoking questions around neoliberal feminism and 'new femininity.' This paper advances on previous research by exemplifying how Serena Williams (considered the greatest female tennis player of all time) combines both her femininity and strong physicality to self - shape a myth - like persona, setting her apart from traditional stereotypes of femininity and 'femaleness.'
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10454/18280
Version
Published version
Citation
Intezar H (2021) Speaking pictures, silent voices: female athletes and the negotiation of selfhood. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science. 55: 89-111.
Link to publisher’s version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-020-09577-6
Type
Article
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