Search results

This chapter introduces and sets the scene for a discussion on women's sport in a professional era. Initiated in the wake of the second-wave feminist movement in America in the 1950s with the professionalisation of golf and tennis, the move for other women's sports to be professionalised has been slow, sporadic and marred with difficulties. However, since the turn of the twenty-first century, there have been significant changes in the landscape of elite women's sport. Alongside an overview of the developments in elite level women's sport, we conceptualise the terms ‘professionalisation’, ‘professional’ and ‘professionalism’. Furthermore, the chapter identifies the scope of the book, drawing upon the importance to consider women's sport as distinct from men's sport and identifying issues that are specific to female athletes, such as maternity and the gender pay gap. We also recognise the diverse and multiple nature of women's identities, highlighting the intersectionality of female athletes in professional sport (specifically around race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and national identity).

To examine some of the complex relationships that exist between sports work and mental health and illness.

This chapter draws upon prevalence data, athlete testimonies, and theoretical works to examine: (1) the prevalence of depression and suicide in professional sport and the wider society; (2) athlete experiences of depression and suicidal ideation, particularly among men; and (3) some of the key sociological ideas which might help to explain experiences of mental health and illness in professional sports work.

Although there are plentiful data on the societal prevalence of depression and suicide, increasing interest in the mental health of professional athletes (and other types of sports workers) has occurred largely in response to individual or clusters of often publicly known, sometimes high profile, cases rather than in response to systematic empirical grounded data. Athlete experiences of mental illness are shown to be related in complex ways to various constraints associated with their public and private lives, to the constraints of their interdependency networks, and to experiences of shame which can have a series of deleterious acute and chronic health costs.

Since much of what is currently known about the links between sports work and mental health and illness is derived from largely psychological studies and media-led or autobiographical accounts, more sociological research is needed to better understand the costs of mental health of working in often very public and highly pressurized, medicalized, scientized, and performance-focused performance sport settings.

This chapter draws upon the sociological concept of rationalization to explore the role and practice of sports medicine. It highlights attempts by the profession to create a rationalized model of health care for sports participants – particularly those involved in high-performance sports settings and the enabling and constraining elements of its enactment.

The chapter explains how changes in the organization of sports medicine have dovetailed with the increasing rationalization of sport which has been significant in enacting changes in sports medicine that are aligned with a more rationalized model of care.

Key findings from the literature highlight the difficulties of implementing rationalized health care policy into practice. Specifically, the chapter examines macro-organizational changes to the structure of sports medicine and the extent to which sports medicine represents a rationalized model of health care by virtue of micro-organizational constraints.

While the discussion draws upon a breadth of research by sociologists of sport who have examined sports medicine practices, the chapter draws heavily on the UK model of sports medicine care in high-performance sport and thus the conclusions may not be wholly transferable to non-UK and non-sports contexts.

This chapter takes an interdisciplinary approach combining expertise in sports management and in philosophy to examine the premises underpinning the contested claim that professional athletes have a special obligation to be role models both within and beyond the sporting arena. Arguments for and against the claim are briefly addressed, as a prelude to identifying and elucidating a set of factors relevant to a consideration of this alleged special obligation. The chapter considers understandings of sport, play and athleticism from an ethical perspective and examines their relationship to professionalism to determine the extent to which ethical imperatives can logically be upheld or undermined within the professional context. The chapter concludes that professional athletes cannot be expected to be able to respond to the demand that they act as role models within and beyond the sporting arena unless the tensions implicit within that demand are articulated. The chapter calls for recognition of the complexity of ethical decision-making in the context of professional sport and recommends that the training of professional athletes should prepare them to deal with this complexity. Recognition of the complexity of decision-making with the professional sporting context suggests the need for further research into optimal training strategies for young professional athletes and into the genesis and reasonableness of the demand that such athletes act as role models both within and beyond the sporting arena.