Baseball, not Biology

This chapter confronts the central claim of many in sport studies that sports may best be characterized by hegemonic masculinity. This school of thought is reflected in the work of such scholars as Nancy Lesko and Varda Burstyn. To challenge this notion, this chapter reads widely from early feminist utopia to contemporary young adult science fiction, exploring the representation of gender as it relates to sport. Science fiction does not limit sport to the realm of the masculine. Athletic bodies, rather, present a distinct limitation to the construction of sport as an inherently violent, destructive (coded masculine) space. In this way, this chapter saves a place for biological embodiment and posits the equation of sport and hegemonic masculinity as an oversimplified essentialism.