The Boundaries of Difference: Negotiating Gender in Recreational Sport*

There is a pervasive belief that meaningful gender differences structure the abilities and desires of bodies. These gender differences are presented as categorical imperatives, despite the prevalence of a range of abilities and desires across genders. How are beliefs about gender differences maintained in light of increasing challenges? Adult recreational sports provide an interesting subworld in which to investigate this question. Through an ethnography of coed softball, reactions to women's demonstrations of excellence is examined to reveal a complicated situation in which belief systems surrounding ideologies of gender difference are often simultaneously challenged and reinvigorated. The work problematizes understandings of difference as perpetuating systems of inequality. The article closes with a discussion of challenges to conceptions of difference and offers a way to move beyond “boundaries of difference.”