Abstract

From a feminist perspective and using an ethnographic methodology, this article explores the gendered world of male rugby players in terms of how they socially and relationally propagate gender roles. Rugby players' social reproduction of gender, ultimately grounded in misogyny, allows these men at the individual level to psychologically and sometimes physically dominate women. At the societal level, rugby, like many sporting practices, both reflects and supports a hierarchical ideology of masculinity and the subordination of women.