Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Higher Goals provides an ethnographic account of the "Blades," a Canadian team that plays at the highest levels of women's hockey. With a vivid depiction of life on the Blades, the book follows the team over two seasons, tracing their journey to a national championship. Key issues in the sociology of sport and gender studies are explored, including the construction of community among women athletes; the "feminine apologetic" and pressures on athletes to conform to feminine ideals; homophobia and the experiences of lesbian athletes; and physicality and women's experience in contact sports.Synopsis
A sociological portrait of a women's Canadian national hockey team. Theberge (kinesiology and sociology, U. of Waterloo) examines general questions of feminist and sports sociology as they arise from her two- year research period with the team. Among the more interesting topics raised are the perception of physicality and aggressiveness (especially as related to the elimination of body checking from the game), the dilemmas of marketing women's sport, the organizational structure of the team, the interactions between players and management, and the responses of women's hockey organizations to unequal treatment (such as not being able to secure the same amount of "ice time" as equivalent men's organizations). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR