Balancing Acts Essays on Power, Performance, Bodies and Love: Women in Sport

Personal, literary, historical, critical and experimental essays that explore Australian women's experiences in sport and sport culture. --Featuring more than 20 non-fiction essays from a diverse range of Australian writers, journalists and athletes. --Contributors include established sports writers and sports advocates like Brunette Lenkic, Imogen Smith, Jodi McAlister, Nicole Hayes, and Danielle Warby; academics and cultural critics such as Kasey Symons, Emma Jenkins and Erin Stewart; as well as emerging writers published widely across literary magazines and newspapers including Ellen Van Neerven, Kate Doak, Holly Isemonger, Gina Rushton, Charlotte Guest, Katerina Bryant, Nadia Bailey and Rebecca Slater. --Essay topics include: the continual sexualisation of women in surfing culture; the marginalisation of women in boxing; feminine performativity in ballet; life as a long-time female AFL spectator; structural disadvantage as experienced by a professional cyclist; social soccer's ins and outs; the power relations between female athletes and their coaches; female-identifying athletes' experience of homophobia; and the aesthetics of televised sports.