Gender Regimes and Habitus: An Avenue for Analyzing Gender Building in Sports Contexts

In this paper, I illustrate how gender dispositions vary in women’s soccer and women’s boxing in France based on Connell’s (1987) concept of gender régime and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. Data were obtained through ethnographic observations and biographical interviews with fifty female athletes. The main results showed that the gender dispositions of the interviewed athletes were formed between specific gender regimes and dispositional systems that differed depending on their sport. In addition, gender dispositions constructed during childhood could be reinforced and/or transformed by sport participation. Both in boxing and in football, the gendered behaviors were also dependent upon the forms of capital each athlete was able to mobilize.