Female Athletes: Being both Athletic and Feminine

Because athletics traditionally has been seen as incompatible with traditional roles for women, female athletes have been expected to experience gender role conflict as they attempt to identify with incompatible roles. However, while negative stereotypes of female athletes persist, research has found little such conflict. In this study, questionnaire and interview data from male and female college athletes and nonathletes suggest some explanations for this. The data showed: (a) Female athletes were accorded greater respect than were male athletes; (b) all groups ' ratings of the femininity of female athletes were above the neutral point, though the ratings of men and nonathletes were significantly lower than those of women and athletes; and (c) consistent with the multiplicity perspective, female athletes reported experiencing their feminine and athletic identities as distinctively different aspects of self