Location
PANEL: Sociology Honors
King 341
Moderator: Greggor Mattson
Document Type
Presentation - Open Access
Start Date
4-25-2025 11:00 AM
End Date
4-25-2025 12:00 PM
Abstract
Rodeo sports are often thought of as a relic of American culture that has endured the passage of time. Despite rodeo’s reputation as one of the most authentic forms of American sport, little is known about contemporary rodeo culture from a sociological perspective. And although gender in sport has received extensive scholarly attention in recent years, even less is known about the gendered experiences of modern rodeo athletes. This paper investigates the meaning of gendered identities in rodeo culture, focusing specifically on the sport’s most popular men’s and women’s events: bull riding and barrel racing, respectively. In-depth interviews with nine rodeo athletes, combined with ethnographic data gathered from both professional and amateur rodeos, reveal the complicated meaning of the terms “cowboy” and “cowgirl” in the sport’s contemporary construction. Pierre Bourdeiu’s theory of cultural capital and Carrie Paechter’s theory of masculinities and femininities as communities of practice are applied to account for the multiplicity of gendered identities present in rodeo. From these theoretical perspectives, cowboy-ness and cowgirl-ness can be interpreted as localized gender performances intimately related to, but not entirely dependent upon, the actual practice of rodeo sports. Athletes’ relationships with animals, occupations, and lifestyles outside of rodeo all influence their relationships to cowboy-ness and cowgirl-ness. Studying gender from this localized perspective reveals the imperfect and socially-variable nature of the reproduction of gender hegemony. While they are often thought to be ubiquitous within American society, these findings suggest that hegemonic forms of gender expression are culturally variable.
Keywords:
Cultural capital, Human-animal relationships, Gender identity, Rurality
Recommended Citation
Feuerstein, Ruby, "Bulls and Barrels: Gendered Identities in Contemporary American Rodeo" (2025). Research Symposium. 8.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2025/presentations/8
Major
Sociology
Award
Jerome Davis Research Fund
Project Mentor(s)
Daphne John, Sociology and Comparative American Studies
2025
Included in
Bulls and Barrels: Gendered Identities in Contemporary American Rodeo
PANEL: Sociology Honors
King 341
Moderator: Greggor Mattson
Rodeo sports are often thought of as a relic of American culture that has endured the passage of time. Despite rodeo’s reputation as one of the most authentic forms of American sport, little is known about contemporary rodeo culture from a sociological perspective. And although gender in sport has received extensive scholarly attention in recent years, even less is known about the gendered experiences of modern rodeo athletes. This paper investigates the meaning of gendered identities in rodeo culture, focusing specifically on the sport’s most popular men’s and women’s events: bull riding and barrel racing, respectively. In-depth interviews with nine rodeo athletes, combined with ethnographic data gathered from both professional and amateur rodeos, reveal the complicated meaning of the terms “cowboy” and “cowgirl” in the sport’s contemporary construction. Pierre Bourdeiu’s theory of cultural capital and Carrie Paechter’s theory of masculinities and femininities as communities of practice are applied to account for the multiplicity of gendered identities present in rodeo. From these theoretical perspectives, cowboy-ness and cowgirl-ness can be interpreted as localized gender performances intimately related to, but not entirely dependent upon, the actual practice of rodeo sports. Athletes’ relationships with animals, occupations, and lifestyles outside of rodeo all influence their relationships to cowboy-ness and cowgirl-ness. Studying gender from this localized perspective reveals the imperfect and socially-variable nature of the reproduction of gender hegemony. While they are often thought to be ubiquitous within American society, these findings suggest that hegemonic forms of gender expression are culturally variable.
