“We All Play Pretty Much the Same, Except. . .”: Gender-Integrated Quidditch and the Persistence of Essentialist Ideology

Abstract

We use the case of a recreational college Quidditch class to examine the consequences of gender-integrated sport for gender essentialist ideology. Data include ethnographic observations and course journal data from 23 first-year undergraduates playing Quidditch over four months. While a gender-integrated sport provided numerous opportunities for participants to witness similarities in performance among men and women, we found only limited challenge to gender essentialist ideas. Despite rules intended to reduce competitiveness and physical contact, play became increasingly aggressive over time, particularly among men, and an emergent positional segregation located women in less central defensive positions. Students frequently understood these trends as the “natural” result of gender difference. Ultimately, participants’ experiences in Quidditch often drew on and solidified ideas about women’s athletic inferiority to men.