Sports romances are one of the fastest growing segments of the romance market. This article analyses representations of hegemonic masculinity in straight ice hockey and ice-skating romances. We begin with a brief discussion of the gendering of sports and how this is reflected in bestselling sport romance novels, before moving to a consideration of how masculinity is manifested in ice hockey and ice-skating novels. We argue that, as in real life, sports in romance novels are gendered as “masculine” and “feminine”, with body contact sports such as hockey being gendered the former while sports favouring grace, flexibility and artistry, such as figure skating, are perceived as feminine. In sports romance novels, hegemonic masculinity is signified by physical size, sexual prowess, various expressions of violence ranging from verbal to physical, and a “happily ever after” ending which can affirm hegemonic masculinity by subordinating female characters’ own ambitions and achievements to marriage and motherhood, thus ensuring athlete heroes’ “reproductive futurism”.
A note adds that:
Some material in this paper has appeared in Alexandra Mulvey’s (2023) unpublished Master of Research dissertation, Gender and Sex Stereotypes in Sports Romance Fiction. Macquarie University. The thesis was the basis of this article.
Here's the abstract:
A note adds that:
More details are available elsewhere in the database about where to find that dissertation.