Gender injustice in action sports: The role, potential and limitations of transformative marketing and media for women’s mountain biking

BA Leverhulme small grant funded project

Mountain biking, like other ‘action leisure’, remains male-dominated. Existing research emphasises that this is reinforced through narrow representation in media and marketing. However, parts of the uniquely market-mediated mountain biking industry have implemented transformative media and marketing strategies to tackle gender injustice. These efforts emphasise women as able and equal, attracting critique for failing to account for entrenched gender injustices that pervade active leisure. In this context, it is important to understand the role of transformative media and marketing in women becoming mountain bikers and in engaging with the community of practice. Furthermore, we ask what the cultural understandings are of mountain biking from outside the community of practice, and who remains excluded. Findings will inform continued industry and policy attempts to tackle gender injustice in action leisure, and inform marketing and public policy scholarship that contextualises action leisure consumption inequalities within the market-mediated history and culture of action leisure.