Traditional Sports and the Construction of Masculinity: Women's Exclusion from Induku Stick Fighting in Kwazulu-Natal

This article examines the cultural and gendered ideas that contribute to the understanding of stick fighting as an essentially masculine practice in KwaZulu-Natal. Through an analysis of statements made in semi-structured interviews with six male participants, including traditional leaders and practitioners, we explore how masculinities and gendered in/exclusions are articulated by men who are invested in the traditional sport of Induku. Drawing on Connell’s approach to masculinity theory and Queer African Feminist perspective, we analyse the ideas about masculinity that are articulated through narratives about Induku, and examine how Induku comes to be understood as a masculine sporting practice. Through this, we are hoping to point to the ways in which women's participation in Induku—women being Induku practitioners—is constructed as a contemporary possibility. As such, our analysis ends with the suggestion that while Induku is consistently presented as a practice for and of men, women's exclusion is not absolute, and that the ways in which gender systems are presented by the male participants in this study reveal a potential for women's culturally legitimate participation in this traditional sport.