‘It’s not particularly P.C., you know…’ Women coaches’ performing gender in strength and conditioning

Strength & conditioning (S&C) has become a chief part of athletes’ physiological preparation. Despite S&C’s growing presence across sports, women coaches have been generally marginalised and under-represented. This study explores female S&C coaches’ experiences and coping mechanisms in a male-dominated industry. In doing so, semi-structured interviews with 15 female S&C coaches were conducted. Main themes identified from interview data are: organisational politics, impression management, and humour. The findings suggest that women S&C coaches are often in subservient positions and have to adopt some of the traditional, male-generated sub-cultural practices to fit in. They carefully manage their coaching front stage to generate an impression that is expected and accepted in the given milieu. In their efforts to fit in, women often find themselves in a multiplicity of power matrices which involve a continuous negotiation of gender identity, internal politics and managing sexist banter.