Elegantly Violent

As part of her senior internship at the Hood Museum of Art and for her Film and Media senior honors project Josie curated the exhibition: “Elegantly Violent: Exploring masculinity and gender expectations in women’s sports.” The exhibition used objects from the Hood collection representing 120 years of history and a diverse array of female athletes in action.

More about the exhibition:

Elegantly Violent invites viewers to explore the role of gender within women’s sports. Created by and for men, modern and contemporary Western sports represent a space to champion masculinity. Even today women who embrace these gendered pursuits are met with confusion and suspicion. While men are encouraged to play, women must justify their desire to participate in any activity based upon aggression, competition, and strength. In this exhibition, images and objects spanning the past 120 years highlight examples of “‘female athletes”’ and their range of relationships with sports masculinity.

This representation of female athletes is not meant to align these women with masculinity or suggest they are male, but instead to break down the gendered expectations around sports, female athletes, and spectatorship. Is there really a difference between “throwing like a boy” and “throwing like a girl”? What does it even mean to be a “‘female athlete” as opposed to simply an “athlete”?

Josephine (Josie) Harrison ‘’25, Mellon Special Project Intern
A Space for Dialogue: Fresh Perspectives on the Permanent Collection from Dartmouth’s Students, founded with support from the Class of 1948, is made possible with generous endowments from the Class of 1967, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Jr. ‘’66, and Pamela J. Joyner ‘’79.

As part of the exhibition Josie gave a gallery talk where she went into more details regarding certain objects and described more of the context around the inspirations and questions Elegantly Violent tried to ask.

Click here for the script to Josie’s gallery talk

Josie Harrison SFD PresentationDownload

The Objects of the Exhibition

Elegantly Violent included 13 objects–of which 9 had never been on show in the Hood before–divided up into four frameworks:

  • Herstory
    • Objects from over 100 years ago that showcase early examples of women in sport, embracing masculinity and/or defying the social norms and gender expectations placed on them.
  • Compete
    • These objects showcase examples of female athletes competing at some of the highest levels of competition, highlighting discourse around uniform, appearance, muscularity, and their actions. This section is also arguably the main part of EV as it also is home to representation of day-to-day athletes, showcasing strength and reclaiming typically male-dominated spaces.
  • Impactful Identities
    • While the focus of this exhibition is on female athletes and gender discourse, this section acknowledges intersectionality, other aspects of a person’s identity that impact their female athlete identity. The identities covered in this section include sexuality, race, and nationhood.
  • The Spectator
    • This section questions you as the spectator. It highlights how these stereotypes and binaries are created or reinforced in our culture and thus how it is the role of all of us as spectators to question our understandings, where they come from, and why they are there. 

Herstory

Compete

Impactful Identities

The Spectator

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