Gender culture (GC) of sports in Brazil from the university entreprise

Abstract

Most popular sports are perceived as masculine around the world. Is it possible that men and
women have different perceptions about the sports` characteristics when they classify them into masculine
or feminine activities? A total of 441 Physical Education students (170 (38.5%) men and 271 (61.5%)
women) from a private university in the city of Brasilia participated in this survey. Of the 46 sports
analyzed, 30 were classified as predominantly neutral, while 12 were masculine or very masculine, 3 were
feminine, and 1 sport, rowing, was distributed between neutral and masculine. Men and women have
different perceptions of gender culture (GC) in sports in Brazil. Women rated sports such as bow, long
jump, throwing, judo, karate, taekwondo and windsurfing as more masculine or less feminine, while men
perceive modalities as car racing, cycling, parachuting and indoor soccer as more masculine. We
concluded that in the GC of sports in Brazil, modalities with artistic and aesthetic characteristics tend to be
considered as more feminine, whereas modalities with aspects of strength, speed and danger tend to be
considered more masculine. Men consider more masculine sports that take into account the danger, while
women force and aggressiveness.