Critical Feminist Theory Essay

The central objectives of this essay are to gain an understanding as to why sexually deviant behaviour occurs within team sport and to explore the possible causes of athlete sexual deviancy. This will be done first and foremost by contextualising deviant behaviour and highlighting the main concepts of the critical feminist sociological theory which will help us to understand why deviant behaviour occurs from a critical feminist point of view. The main concepts of the theory to be utilised will be patriarchy and gender ideology which will help us to understand possible influential factors of sexual deviancy within team sport; using the theorists viewpoints to understand why this is behaviour occurs, the legal and personal ramifications of

Feminism is a collection of social theories originating in the 1960’s, which set out to achieve social change due to dissatisfaction that issues affecting women within society were largely ignored, reducing them to a disempowered, subservient role within society (Malcolm, 2008; Coakley and Pike, 2014; Woods, 2011). Each strand of feminism set out to achieve social change in a different way, however feminists as a whole hold the prevailing belief that sports are organised around an ideology that emphasises male domination, superiority and conquest (Houlihan, 2008). Critical feminist theory is suited to asking pertinent questions about the issues of power and the dynamics of gender relations in sports and social life in general (Coakley and Pike, 2014). Theorists focus on issues of power and seek to explain the origin and consequences of gender relations, in particular those which privilege men over women. Critical feminists use gender ideology as a concept which describes the ideas and beliefs held by society of appropriate ways in which a male or a female should behave and the masculine or feminine traits they are expected to possess and portray as appropriate to their biological sex (Coakley and Pike, 2014; Houlihan, 2008; Jarvie, 2006). In order to understand gender ideology, the process of gender socialisation must be considered; this being the learning of norms and values which