Introduction: Putting Sex Gender on the Agenda

Abstract

This is a book about how power operates in the Olympic Games: the systems and processes through which social relations are forged and generated in what is one of the biggest shows on earth — probably the biggest show on earth — involving more nations, more spectators and more sports than any other competition and seemingly one of the most democratic and inclusive of sporting events. Sex Power and the Games explores how power operates to instate social inclusion and exclusion and in particular reinforce inequalities. The book considers whether an interrogation of the systems and processes through which power operates is sufficient to explain the endurance of inequalities, notably those which are based on the binary logic of sex gender. A focus on sex gender is offered as a means of making material the enfleshed exclusion of categories of person. Sport, however, especially the Olympic Games, offers possibilities for democratic engagement and widening participation, so it is not surprising that discussion of the games includes its possibilities and promises as well as the excitement and passion sport evokes.