Sports

Profit-seeking in ice hockey may reinforce macho behaviour

9 May 2023

Swedish ice hockey players seemed more prone to macho behavior on Instagram than their Norwegian counterparts. This may be because ice hockey is a national sport in Sweden, which means more professionalisation and commercialisation, according to researchers.

A forgotten suitcase from a queer life

29 November 2022

An old, anonymous leather suitcase found in a museum storage area in Halden put three eager museum employees on the trail of the life of "The Fencing Lady".

Sex testing of female athletes: fair or unethical?

30 October 2020
Female athletes with a high testosterone level are required to take hormone-reducing medication in order to participate in the women’s category. This is problematic, according to researcher Mari Haugaa Engh.

Arabic women’s football: supported by the regime, but still breaking social norms

30 January 2020
Norms and legislation strictly limit women's lives in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Nevertheless, women find ways to realise themselves – like by playing football.

A fit body gives men career advantages

31 May 2018
Lisa M. B. Sølvberg has interviewed ten Norwegian upper class men about body, nutrition and physical activity. According to her, leaders’ views on physical exercise may affect whom they choose to employ.

Women are entering the boxing ring

22 November 2016
Cecilia Brækhus is just one of several Norwegian female athletes who has contributed to putting women’s boxing on the map, both in Norway and internationally, according to researcher Anne Tjønndal.

Football on high heels

17 November 2010
When the men’s national team loses a match they are called “sissies”, and women who are good at football “play like men”. Both men and women are the losers when gender stereotypes are used in sports journalism, according to Professor Gerd von der Lippe.

Muscles and medicine

9 June 2011
According to doctors during the interwar period, wide hips made women unsuitable for running long distances. In her recent doctoral thesis, Kerstin Bornholdt looks at how researchers reached conclusions like this.

Being scrawny is not an option

17 July 2011
A dedicated football player, a disciplined martial arts practitioner or a respected weightlifter? According to a recent Norwegian study, young girls are most concerned with their appearance as they become teenagers, but boys must do something to become young men. Their choice of activity is also a choice of masculine identity. 

Sound focus on health or eating disorder in disguise?

7 September 2015
According to Norwegian fitness bloggers, the ideal female body is supposed to be slim, muscular, feminine and strong. However, the eating and workout regimes they promote are so strict, that even the bloggers themselves almost fail to follow them.

Why women's football isn't real football

26 January 2015
The female body is not suited for real football, according to debaters in the online debate forum of Norway's biggest tabloid newspaper. Why is football the only sport in which women’s performance is constantly compared to men’s?

Masculine Sport: A Homo-free zone?

24 October 2005
Anti-gay remarks come up in elite sports at regular intervals. Kjetil Rekdal, the manager of elite division football team Vålerenga, has said, among other things: “I am homophobic”. Why are male dominated sports environments often homophobic? Heidi Eng and Ulla-Britt Lilleaas have, in their respective research projects, attempted to find some answers.

News Magazine

Our news magazine is an independent online newspaper and a member of the Norwegian Specialised Press Association Fagpressen.