Making Sense of Muscle: The Body Experiences of Collegiate Women Athletes*

Using ethnographic research, this paper explores the experiences of elite women athletes on a Division‐I college soccer team. I draw on existing literature in the sociology of sport, sociology of the body, and interactionism to inform my analysis. With this approach, I illustrate the complicated relationship women athletes have with their bodies in relation to physical competition and dominant notions of femininity today. Key reference groups influenced the players’ self‐perceptions and encouraged the women to closely monitor their own appearances and actions. While undoubtedly affected by these inter‐actions as well as their place in the gender hierarchy, many women athletes subtly resisted notions of idealized bodies and constructed their own meanings about their bodies and experiences. Investigating the day‐to‐day body awareness and negotiations of women athletes reveals the gendered nuances of sport and the complicated relationship between cultural ideals and female embodiment.