“We Are All Delicate Teacups”: A Qualitative Exploration of Misrecognition and Gender Inequality in Women’s Ski Jumping

Christiaens, M ORCID: 0000-0003-0866-8884 and Konkel, A (2026) “We Are All Delicate Teacups”: A Qualitative Exploration of Misrecognition and Gender Inequality in Women’s Ski Jumping. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 34 (1). ISSN 1063-6161

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Abstract

This paper examines how elite women ski jumpers experience recognition and misrecognition within ski jumping, a sport traditionally organized around masculine norms. By combining Honneth’s theory of recognition with feminist understanding of hegemonic masculinity, the study views elite sport as a place of work in which athletes seek recognition. This study drew on qualitative data from 13 semistructured interviews with professional women ski jumpers and one representative from the governing body FIS and used reflexive thematic analysis to examine how recognition was granted, withheld, or conditioned in everyday sporting practice. The analysis identified three interconnected areas through which misrecognition is produced: the sports organizational environment, paternalistic discourses surrounding women’s bodies, and gendered media representation. Across these themes, hegemonic masculinity emerged as the underlying mechanism of misrecognition across Honneth’s three spheres of recognition (love, rights, and solidarity). Women athletes are denied full recognition through restricted decision-making power and regulatory exclusion (rights), the devaluation and sexualization of their performances and bodies (solidarity), and paternalistic and hostile relational environments that undermine bodily trust and self-confidence (love). Moreover, these violations were found to converge to produce harm beyond a single sphere, undermining women’s professional identities, well-being, and sense of belonging. By demonstrating the influence of hegemonic masculinity and the way misrecognition operates simultaneously across spheres, this paper advances recognition theory as a multilevel analytical framework for understanding gender inequality in sport. Although centered on women’s ski jumping, the findings provide insights into how gendered power relations structure recognition within the broader elite sport sector.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1699 Other Studies in Human Society; 4207 Sports science and exercise; 4405 Gender studies
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV561 Sports
Divisions:	Liverpool Business School
Publisher:	Human Kinetics
Date of acceptance:	26 June 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	22 September 2026
Date Deposited:	21 Sep 2026 13:29
Last Modified:	22 Sep 2026 00:50
DOI or ID number:	10.1123/wspaj.2026-0066
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29485

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