3 Challenging Gender Norms Through Sporting: The Power and Potential of Ultimate Frisbee as a Tool to Challenge the Gender Binary

Introduction:

A cacophony of voices intermingle as they rise across a spring breeze. A community comes together to chase a plastic disc like their life depends on it. On the field, they are all free, unburdened by whatever it is that they are returning to when the game is over. Pass after pass, point after point, they play until one person stands triumphantly within the four cones that mark the endzone, and the game is over. Now this scene may not seem revolutionary, however the unassuming sport of Ultimate Frisbee holds the potential to create a sporting culture that challenges traditional gender roles within and outside of Latin American communities. Ultimate naturally complements organizing as it is a self-officiated sport. The fourteen players on the field call fouls for themselves, only calling in coaches or players on the sideline if a rules clarification or perspective on a call is necessary. Through self governance, players are granted the opportunity to advocate for themselves rather than be officiated by a referee, judge or umpire. This autonomy can be translated to the building of advocating skills beyond the scope of the field, especially within young adults who may spend most of their time in environments that teach them subservience. Ultimate is also a young sport, having been invented in 1968, with a culture that is not concretely solidified. Because the sport’s culture is still malleable, its marginalized membership have the ability to not only influence the culture on a micro scale, but change the sports trajectory on an international scale as well.

Even though it is a predominantly white sport, many people of color dominate high level Ultimate, with the Colombian national team going toe to toe with the United States’ best in the most recent World Games, Ultimate’s version of the Olympics. Colombia’s outstanding performances on the world stage serves as a catalyst for the sports growth across Colombia and into other countries in Latin America. While Colombian Ultimate organizations have not yet collected statistics on the exact number of people who play ultimate in the nation, as of 2010 there were at least 35 ultimate clubs across the country (Tejada Otero, 2010) and the sport has seen continuous growth in the years since. Data collected by USA Ultimate (USAU), the governing body for ultimate in the US, boasts an estimate of 7 million athletes across 56 countries who play the sport at some level. As the sport has grown, questions and concerns surrounding the functioning of gender within ultimate have and continue to emerge. In 2001, mixed competitive ultimate was introduced at the World Games, the highest level of competitive play in the sport (USAU, 2001). Unlike traditional Men’s and Women’s divisions, mixed ultimate is played by teams that consist of athletes identifying with all genders. The division does however, require all players to identify themselves as male or female matching, therefore constricting them to the limitations of the gender binary. Mixed gender ultimate does provide a unique opportunity for conversations about gender to be breached within the community because such conversations are required for the division and sport as a whole to develop and grow. In this paper I will argue that through strategic reframing of Ultimate frisbee culture and with the endorsement of key actors in the present day ultimate scene, the sport of ultimate frisbee can be used as a tool to challenge the gender binary in and beyond Colombia.

In an effort to establish mixed ultimate as a revolutionary space with the potential to challenge and deconstruct the gender binary, I will first establish gender as a colonial project. With the aid of literature written by Maria Lugones, Paul Grossman, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Kyla Schuller I will introduce gender as a system of oppression that directly influences the gendered nature of sports. Because I am focusing on the sporting world as an avenue for systemic change, I will be drawing from sports-for development theory (SFDT), non-violent revolution strategies, and critical analyses of the commodification of athletes as I navigate how to use ultimate to challenge the colonial gender structure. I will then examine the ultimate scene in Colombia, providing information not only on Colombian Ultimate but also the unique functionings of the gender binary in the nation.

Gender as A Colonial Project

So how was the colonial gender regime erected? Furthermore, how has its construction influenced the trajectory of modern day sporting?

In order to grasp the long-lasting impact that colonial powers have had on the construction of gender in sports, it is crucial to understand how power and gender connect to the colonial project. In her chapter titled “Gender” in the book Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies, Jules Gill-Peterson situates the invention of the term “gender”, as it refers to the social construct of the gender binary, within the mid twentieth century (Gill-Peterson, 2021). While the term “gender” may have originated within the twentieth century, the construction of gender based oppression far predates the nineteen hundreds. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, colonial powers made calculated efforts to define and control sexuality. Paul Grossman notes that “sexuality was important to colonial powers because it fulfilled the two crucial arms of colonial rule: outlining the identity of the metropole and why it was superior to all others (identity) and solidifying control over its colonial subjects through defining their supposed sexuality as wrong (control)” (Grossman, 3). In Europe, the implementation of gender as a regime of control had already begun taking place and grounding itself in the Eurocentric regime of truth by the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. For reference, the regime of truth, as it is defined by Michael Foucault in The Birth of Biopolitics, occurs the moment that a belief becomes an indisputable truth to a group of persons. The existence of only two human sex categories is not a scientific “truth” because intersex people exist prominently, however binary gender is “true” because it has been subscribed to by a community of people not only in practice, but in policy too (Foucault, 1979). As binary gender became inaugurated into the eurocentric regime of truth, not only did the categories of “man” and “woman” become the only two valid expressions of gender, one’s given gender now directly correlated with their role and power in the private and public spheres of life (Lugones, 2008; Grossman, 2018).

Since many indigenous gender structures integrated more than two sex and gendered categories, they posed threats to the heterosexual marriage unit, the patriarchy, and the system of white supremacy. Maria Lugones informs this claim in The Coloniality of Gender when she recognizes that “Gender does not need to organize social arrangements, including social sexual arrangements. But gender arrangements need not be either heterosexual or patriarchal.” (Lugones, 2). It is only within the eurocentric regime of truth that gender and sexuality correlate directly to oppressive social roles which uphold the patriarchy. Lugones backs this claim by offering a case study. She states that prior to colonialism, the Cherokee tribe distributed power with no attention to the sex or gender of an individual. Yet after the imposition of colonial structuring, “Cherokee women lost all [their] powers and rights, as the Cherokee were removed and patriarchal arrangements were introduced.” (Lugones, 11). This removal of power both positioned women as subordinate to men and reinforced the colonial regime of truth that derived power from made up gender and sex categories.

It is because of this link between gender and patriarchal oppression that indigenous truth regimes surrounding gender are a danger to white supremacy (Lugones, 2008; Grossman, 2018). If there were to be an acceptance of indigenous gender, sex, and sexuality structures or any beyond the binary, then the Eurocentric regime of truth would be shattered (Grossman, 2018; Foucalt, 1979). Acceptance of indigeneity would signal an acceptance and recognition of gender and sex beyond the binary as well as the acceptance of sexuality beyond the hetero. Because gender was a key pillar of social control for the colonial world, distrust in its “truth” could cause systemic ruptures that challenged the control of the colonial (and therefore white supremacist) regimes.

By being placed in binary opposition with Eurocentrism, indigeneity had become the other within the regime of truth; synonymous with the feminine, the deviant, and the lesser than while the colonial was reinforced as the better, the normal, the acceptable, and the good. It is within this act of positioning the colonial and the indigenous in opposition that both of the limbs of colonial control that Grossman refers to are fulfilled. Indigenous sexuality was henceforth defined as deviant in relation to the “better” westernized heterosexual marriage unit that was grounded in both the patriarchy and the existence of only two human gender categories (Grossman, 2018; Lugones, 2008). Pushing back against Gill-Peterson, this distinct transition from belief to truth may more accurately represent the birth of “gender” as it refers to a system of control within the colonial world. Furthermore, upon being established within the eurocentric regime of truth, the binary gender based system has been upheld within all facets of the western world, including the realm of sports. Sporting upholds the gender binary through its traditional division of “mens” and “womens” teams, however this is where ultimate differs from other sports. Rather than fully conform to the traditional stratification of genders in competitive sporting, ultimate additionally offered a mixed gender alternative for athletes of all genders to play the sport together. While the mixed division is still heavily influenced by the structure of binary gender, it challenges the notion that sports must be divided based on gender and provides avenues for further challenging of the gender based system on and beyond the field.

Sporting as a Catalyst for Systemic Change

But, why use sports as a catalyst for change? And how does one do so?

Athletes challenging oppressive systems is nothing new to the sporting world. Whether it be on a international scale such as the 1968 Olympics where Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to protest racial discrimination against black folks in the US, or on a more national scale such as Colin Kapernick taking a knee during the national anthem in 2016, athletes have and will continue to use their platforms to stand against oppression (Grenardo, 2016). Collegiate, professional, and high level athletes tend to have the most social capital and are able to reach the widest audience especially within sports that have a large viewership. Additionally, Rudy Mondragón adds that athletes, specifically black and brown athletes, are heavily commodified; expected to attain victory in their sport and not speak on their lives as human beings (Mondragón, 2021). The combination of having a social platform, an audience who recognizes an athlete’s skill on the field, experience being a commodified body, and having experience with systemic oppression firsthand can lead athletes of color to use their platforms to speak on social, political, and personal oppressions that they and their communities face (Mondragón, 2021). Even athletes who are the best at their given sport face hurdles when speaking out against systemic oppression; Smith and Carlos were banned from their Mexico City club and Kapernic was blacklisted from the NFL (Grenardo, 2016). And still, the audiences that they have the ability to reach and even influence are critical to the amplification of calls to action and change.

To use sports to enact systemic change is a more complex task. As I begin to navigate how to create systemic change through the sporting culture of Ultimate, I will draw from sport-for-development theory (SFDT) as it provides an interdisciplinary framework for how sporting initiatives can have the most impact when challenging structurally enforced systems of oppression. SFDT has drawn from past and present sporting initiatives that have tackled the project of mitigating intergroup conflict through sporting as well as that of challenging systems of oppression through sport (Lyras and Peachey, 2011) and have created a theoretical foundation for future sporting projects aiming to tackle similar issues. SFDT “suggests that sport initiatives can facilitate personal development and social change by embracing non-traditional sport management practices through an interdisciplinary framework, blending sport with cultural enrichment.” (Lyras and Peachy, 313).

The framework articulates five components of SFD programmes that are crucial to their success. These are a) impact assessment; b) organizational components; c) sports and physical activity; d) education; and e) cultural enrichment. When all of these components are actualized in a SFD project, Lyras and Peachy believe that a foundation is set for the project to be successful. However, they also note that there is a need to base any SFD project on the needs, cultures, and politics of the place in which the SFD project takes place. By grounding SFD projects in the needs, cultures, and politics of the community that the project is taking place in, saviorism and the perpetuation of white supremacy are mitigated. Within this paper, the five components will be drawn upon to check that the sporting initiative proposed has taken into account and provided strategies to fulfill these necessary criteria. As Lilla Watson said, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.” The goal of challenging gender based oppression through sport is not to enter a community that is not one’s own and dictate what they need, but to use sporting to learn and grow in a sporting community, share resources, appreciate one another, and expand upon the possibilities of what gender can look like together.

Ultimate Frisbee in Colombia: A Case Study on Challenging the Colonial Gender Project through Sport

The Ultimate community in Colombia is unique because it is one of the only non-western countries that dominates Ultimate frisbee on the global scene. It is recognized by Ultiworld, the primary global news network for Ultimate, as one of the top four national teams in the world alongside Germany, Australia, and the United States (Raynor, 2022). There are several factors that make the Colombian ultimate scene a unique case study for how ultimate may be used to challenge gender based systems. First off, ultimate is naturally compatible with the five components of SFDT making it more likely to succeed at challenging dominant gender structures in Colombia (Lyras and Peachey, 2011). Second, the most decorated athletes in the Colombian national scene are women meaning that the faces of the scene are already challenging the narrative that men dominate high level sporting. Third, the unique gender hierarchies present in Colombia may offer the ability for ultimate to be used to aid non-men in socio-economic mobility, therefore incentivising non-men to participate in the sport (McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). Finally, mixed gender ultimate clubs may offer spaces for individuals of all gender identifications to engage in discourse on the effects of gender in Colombia that would otherwise not be available.

In line with SFDT’s suggestion, this case study will begin by examining the present gender based system that exists in Colombia. The Catholic Church is responsible for the institution of the patriarchal, binary gender based social system that has evolved into the gendered system present in Colombia today (McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). As it has developed, the colonial gender based structure in Colombia has been influenced by the illicit drug industry, cultural machismo, and a near 60 year armed conflict between government forces and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018; McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). As a result of the nations ongoing internal armed conflict, “more than 5.5 million Colombians have registered with the national government as victims of conflict” (McLachlan and Oxford, 261) with nearly 56% of the internally displaced people being female identifying (Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018). Furthermore, as of 2016, 27.8% of the national population lived below the poverty line, directly linking them to having higher depression and suicide rates as well as physical ailments (Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018; McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). As the nation has struggled with internal conflict and people have felt a loss of control over their own lives, the gender binary has been rigorously reinforced as a way for men to maintain some sort of power over another group (women) (McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). Even since the 2016 peace treaty that brought an end to the conflict between governmental forces and FARC, women and non-men have struggled to attain gender equality in both the public and private spheres. Non-men face stark stereotypes and rigid gender roles that socialize them to appease the male gaze. The dominant expectation is that

“A woman must do three things: wear makeup and have long hair, wear tight clothes and heels, and most importantly always be trying to make herself more beautiful. Will we ever have a female footballer more famous than Miss Universe?” (McLachlan and Oxford, 259).

Even within the world of sporting, non-men are still restricted by the gender based system and yet, there is always hope for change.

Sport-for-development theory has provided a table outlining the five components that any SFDT program needs as well as specific aspects of each component (Lyras and Peachey, 2011).

Pictured above is that table with green outlining encapsulating all points that are already being addressed by the sport of Ultimate. [A combination of spirit-of-the-game principles, rules, opportunities to play on mixed teams at all levels, and international care networks have made ultimate a sport that enforces SFDT without its members’ direct knowledge or intention. Now, ultimate must be situated within the context of exiting Colombian gender structures.

Only recently have non-men even been allowed in Colombia’s sporting world and yet the space serves as critical for their liberation (McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). Very few spaces allow for non-men to practice self advocacy skills because such a trait is not perceived as ‘feminine’ or ‘womanly’. Since gender based oppression is so prominent both within and outside of sporting spaces it is revolutionary that the faces of Colombian Ultimate are non-men. Manuela and Valeria Cardenas are just that; the two most decorated ultimate stars to come out of Colombia are twin sisters who have been playing ultimate since they were eight years old. At eleven, the sisters won their first international title in 2010 and have continued to win national and international titles with teams from across the world (Robin, 2016). Their athletic builds, short haircuts, and aggressive playing style challenge the stereotypical Colombian beauty standard that position women as ‘delicate’ and ‘fragile’ (Robin, 2016; Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018). The Cardenas twins are recognized in the international ultimate scene and because of this, they are positioned to use their social capital to challenge the gender structure that their very existence already does (Mondagón, 2021). Even though the act of existing in their authenticity challenges the gender structure, there is the potential for them to go a step further and intentionally cultivate and endorse a gender inclusive sporting culture. As noted within the table above, “transformational leadership”, “positive role models”, the unique potential of local shareholders, and local culture are all key factors to a successful SFDT campaign (Lyras and Peachey, 314). If the most prominent actors in the Colombian ultimate scene were to encourage the national sporting culture to acknowledge and support its non-male membership, the culture would be more likely to regard and apply this change (Lyras and Peachey, 2011; Oxford and McLachlan, 2018; Tejada Otero, 2010).

Additionally, Oxford and McLachlan state that “a Colombian woman’s socio-economic positioning affects her living conditions, obstacles, opportunities, knowledge, and choices.” (Oxford and McLachlan, 259). By financially compensating non-male athletes, ultimate may be able to “build the capacity of and empower local stakeholders based on their needs and unique potential” (Lyras and Peachey, 314) by offering non-men an avenue to achieve financial independence through sporting. Since the gender based system in Colombia asserts control over non-men by instructing them to rely on the money that their male counterparts make, providing access to financial independence is critical to challenging the gendered hierarchies. However, financial prosperity can be a danger in Colombia due to the coupling of the nation’s high poverty rate and the presence of “demobilized members of illegal armed groups” (Oxford and McLachlan, 261) that are the result of the nation’s internal conflict. Having money and posing a threat to the gendered system could put athletes at an increased risk of facing retribution by those who benefit off of the patriarchal system. These dangers do not mean that non-male and male athletes should not get properly compensated for their athletic accomplishments, but rather that international and national ultimate organizations must be aware of this reality and ready to protect their athletes from these threats if need be (Lyras and Peachey, 2011).

Finally, in order to challenge the gender binary, mixed ultimate teams must be equipped with tools to cultivate revolutionary spaces within their teams and facilitate discussions on the effects of gender based hierarchies within their communities. To do this, research on the functionings of gender hierarchies must be done on a community to community basis in order to provide each mixed club a specialized toolkit that takes into account the specific nuances of gender within their community. This research simply does not exist yet, meaning that a critical next step is to produce more research through ethnographies, field research, interviews and further data collection in all Colombian communities with ultimate teams. This can, and should be done by local Colombians of all gender identities, socio-economic experiences, education levels, and proficiency/understanding of ultimate. While it may not be collected and accessible anytime soon, further research on the effect of the sport ultimate on gender structures and a community to community database outlining different individuals experiences within the gendered system of oppression will aid in the creation of a stronger SFDT program in Colombia.

ANALYSIS:

By using SFDT to challenge the structure of gender based oppression in Colombia, it is possible to begin to redefine the roles of gender and introduce the opportunity to exist beyond the binary. However, it is critical to note that there is a pre-existing gender based structure that grounds itself in colonialism, years of national conflict that still reap violence on the entirety of the nation, and the illicit drug industry (Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018; McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). It is also important to recognize that standing against a gender based system that is so ingrained in the fabric of national identity poses a direct risk to the athletes who put their bodies on the line to stand for a cause they believe in (McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). The colonial gender project as it exists in Colombia will not be deconstructed solely by athletes no matter how decorated and acknowledged they are on the international scene, yet, there is a chance to redefine the gendered narrative on the micro and meso scale (McLachlan and Oxford, 2017). SFDT is also a flawed theoretical framework and following it to a tee is (1) not possible and (2) even if achieved, does not guarantee a flawless program that achieves all it was set out to do (Lyras and Peachey, 2011). Lyras and Peachey acknowledge that “the proposed blueprint is [not] a checklist with a ‘‘one size fits all’’ approach” (Lyras and Peachey, 324) and that “a functionalist imposition of Western ideology into other cultures and contexts” (Lyras and Peachey, 324) is not the goal of SFDT programs and must be avoided at all costs.

CONCLUSION:

Ultimate frisbee is already a sport that challenges national gender roles in Colombia through its centering of female athletes in the sport and by offering non-men an athletic community that challenges them to learn self-advocacy skills and supports their exploration of self expression in ways that are not accepted in the public or private spheres of life (Lyras and Peachey, 2011; Oxford and McLachlan, 2018; Tejada Otero, 2010). By doing so, ultimate culture allows for the definition of “woman” to be expanded upon in a nation that has derived their gender based system from the eurocentric truth regime that upholds white supremacy, colonialism, and the violence of the patriarchy (Lugones, 2008; Grossman, 2018; Gill-Peterson, 2021; Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018). Because SFDT so naturally interconnects with ultimate’s pedagogies, rules, and culture, there is a higher chance for SFDT projects focusing on redefining gender in Colombia to succeed at the micro or meso level however it is an overreach to say that it can change the entirety of the gender based system that is present within Colombia (Lyras and Peachey, 2011; Franco-Orozco and Franco-Orozco, 2018). The gender based system that ultimate aims to challenge maintains deep ties to the national histories and identities and therefore will not so easily be uprooted (Oxford and McLachlan, 2018). However, these hurdles do not mean that the project of challenging dominant gender ideologies through sporting in Colombia is a lost cause, it simply means that there is a battle ahead and strategizing how to best utilize the sport of ultimate and all its prominent actors will prove critical to the success or failures of its long term change (Oxford and McLachlan, 2018; Lyras and Peachey, 2011). Collecting further information regarding the impacts of ultimate on non-male athletes gender identity and the backlash that they have faced as a result is a necessary next step for Colombian ultimate. However, with the sports front runners being non-men who challenge the traditional image of a Colombian woman, there is hope for the sport to continue to push back against the colonial gender regime in Colombia. Nothing is ever too big a challenge for those who believe.