Women in the Equestrian World: Forging Corporalities and Subjectivities

Abstract

As of the end of the 19th century, sporting practices became the terrain of intense symbolic and material struggles over the definition of femininity – over “what a woman is” and over what women could or should do with their bodies. For over a decade now, I have been conducting research on women in the world of equestrian sport in Brazil. This paper presents a synthesis of my research, looking at different groups of horsewomen: an initial group were women from the elite world of show jumping; a second group, women jockeys who have struggled to find a niche within the still very masculine world of the turf and finally, my most recent endeavor, a look at women who participate in the popular Brazilian milieu of the rodeo. Through collecting women’s testimonies and engaging in ethnographic research employing interactionist methodologies, I seek to understand how these women construct their identities, how they deal with milieu that continue to be largely male and how, within these contexts, they develop self-affirming strategies. It is my contention that, notwithstanding the normative pressures and cultural and/or material obstacles they face, these women, through their ways of being and acting, present a challenge to conventional modes of feminine corporality/subjectivity.