The Political, the Private and the Public: A Framework of Female Athlete’s Protests over the Past Fifty Years

Abstract

Activism on the part of female athletes is a relatively underexplored topic, even as it draws much public attention today. The primary goal of this thesis is to explore whether there is a more comprehensive framework through which scholars can best understand how female athletes protest in society today, with an eye toward understanding how different institutional contexts shape this activism. This thesis presents a three part framework which aims to organize our understanding of female athletes' activism into three institutional spheres: the political sector, the private sector, and the public sector. By suggesting a more diverse framework for studying activism, I hope to illustrate the unique qualities of each sphere and demonstrate why a female athlete may choose a certain sector as the location of protest. This thesis utilizes case studies in order to illustrate how female athletes mobilize within the sector and the subsequent benefits of these approaches. In total, this three-pronged framework provides a holistic view of how and why female athletes have chosen to protest over the past fifty years, with implications for how academics study such activism as well as public understandings of it.