Social representation of beauty in women's sports activities

The current research studies the discursive space of women's physical activity with a qualitative

approach in order to answer the basic question: around which hegemonic signifiers are women's

sports actions formed as a discursive order. In this regard, by using the theoretical fields related

to social constructionism, the description and interpretation of women's sports actions were

discussed in the framework of the discourse analysis method. The conceptual framework of the

study is derived from the theoretical approaches of thinkers such as Foucault, Elias, Laclau, and

Mouffe, and the data collection method is a semi-structured interview. The study sample is 22

women from Rasht city, who were selected for the interview with the purposeful theoretical

sampling method. The findings of the research show that the difference in gender role

expectations has a significant impact on the difference in women's participation in sports and

also in choosing the type of sports activity.

The coexistence of the opposite traits of elegance/violence and tenderness/power shows that

women expand the meanings related to femininity in sports in the position of subjectivity. Also,

the identification and categorization of categories related to the reproduction of women's bodies

in three levels of the concepts of body construction, body femininity, and body discipline and

shame shows that due to the predominance of beauty discourse, women's sports actions receive

their meaning and identity from this discourse. The objectification of each of these three

discourse levels indicates that what determines the long-term goals and