Gender aspects of body and corporeality of female downhill longboard riders

Focusing on girls who compete in downhill longboarding, this thesis examines how women are pushed to display typically "male" characteristics in order to succeed. With contemporary western society viewing attributes such as speed, being competitive, overcoming fear and coping with pain as typically masculine traits, the main research goal of this inquiry is to find out how female riders cope with maintaining their femininity in the masculinized world of downhill longboarding. The main focus is on observing how female riders cope with being a good rider and being feminine at the same time, primarily through the way this double-faced pressure is projected in the bodies of female downhill longboarders.The theoretical part of this thesis is mainly focused on a sport as a gendered/masculinized field and the ideal form of the body constructed by the sociocultural pressure and instructions which are associated with it. The analytical part of this thesis is focused on the experiences of Czech female downhillers and the way in which they negotiate their femininity/masculinity, perceived or otherwise, and how the gender order is projected onto their bodies. This thesis aims to reveal the ambivalences caused by the pressure to women to maintain the hegemonic femininity and be masculinized competitive sport..