Winning at Any Cost? Gender, Sport and Violence

Sexual violence on college campuses is not a new issue, however, the current media spotlight has brought greater public attention to this problem. Yet, despite this attention, there continues to be incidences of sexual violence across university campuses, and in university athletics in particular. In more than 100 cases of sexual violence on Canadian university campuses over a ten-year span, 23% involved university athletes as alleged perpetrators (Quinlan et al.). Given that competitive athletes compose between 1-3% of the university student population in Canada, they are over-represented in reported cases of sexual violence (Quinlan et al.), which suggests that sexual violence in university sport is particularly problematic. In this paper, this issue is addressed by asking how ruling relations inform institutional responses to sexual violence. First, to explore this question a literature review of sexual violence in sport is provided. Second, a description of how the ruling relations of organizations as a conceptual framework is outlined. Third, a consideration of the institutional responses to two cases of sexual violence in university athletics reported in the Canadian media are described. Following a discussion concerning these cases, suggestions are offered that address sexual violence in Canadian university sport, which may be translatable to other contexts.