The American male's obsession with sports seems to suggest that the love affair is a natural expression of masculinity. But sociologists have found that, conversely, sports teach men how to be manly, and studying sports reveals much about masculinity in contemporary America.
References
1.
BirrellSusanColeCheryl L., eds. Women, Sport and Culture.Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1994. A collection of feminist critiques of sport that includes several influential contributions on men and masculinity.
2.
BrownellSusan. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's Republic.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. The chapters on sex, gender, and the body offer a fascinating cross-cultural contrast, and provide an introduction to sports in the nation that will host the 2008 Olympics.
3.
BurstynVarda. The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics and the Culture of Sport.Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. The most comprehensive treatment of the social, cultural, and historical forces that account for the relationship between men and sports in modern society.
4.
FineGary Alan. With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. A pioneering field study from a noted sociologist of culture.
5.
KelleyRobin D. G.“Playing for Keeps: Pleasure and Profit on the Postindustrial Playground.” In The House that Race Built.ed. Wahneema Lubiano. New York: Pantheon, 1997. An ethnographically informed treatment of the opportunities basketball presents to inner-city African-American men produced by the country's preeminent historian of black popular culture.
6.
KleinAlan M.Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction.Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. A vivid ethnography of competitive body builders on the West Coast that draws upon Robert Connell's seminal critique of the intersection of men's bodies, identities and sexualities in masculine culture.
7.
MessnerMichael. Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports.Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. The latest book from the leading scholar in the field. It exposes the ways in which men and women together use sports to define gender differences.
8.
ProngerBrian. The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, Homosexuality and the Meaning of Sex.London: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pronger explores the problematic connections between gender and sexuality in sport, highlighting its libidinal dimensions.
