WOMEN’S BODIES IN SPORT: REPRESENTATION, POWER AND RESISTANCE

Abstract

This article analyzes sport as a cultural field in which women’s bodies are regulated, represented, and contested through feminist resistance. It is based on the understanding that sport is not limited to physical practice, competition, or leisure, since it also produces meanings about body, gender, performance, ability, and belonging. The guiding question of the study is: how does sport participate in the cultural production of women’s bodies, and how do feminist resistances challenge these norms? The objective is to analyze how the sporting field produces representations, regulates bodies, and, at the same time, can be contested as a space of resistance. Methodologically, this is a qualitative bibliographic study with a theoretical-interpretative approach. The discussion articulates contributions from Cultural Studies, feminist criticism, debates on body and power, and the intersectional perspective. The analysis shows that women’s presence in sport should not be understood only in terms of access or numerical participation, but also through the symbolic, political, and social conditions that define visibility, legitimacy, and recognition. The study points out that gender norms, symbolic hierarchies, surveillance of the body, intersectional inequalities, and forms of violence shape women’s trajectories in sport. It concludes that feminist resistances in the sporting field are not limited to occupying previously denied spaces, but involve struggles for recognition, safety, the right to presence, and the transformation of norms that have historically associated strength, authority, and performance with masculinity.