Most studies on attitudes towards homosexuality focus on discrimination and prejudice. This research emphasizes the importance of understanding women’s individual feelings of agency in the context of social inequality. In addition, their uniforms sometimes lead to unwanted attention from some men in the crowd who misinterpret the intended meanings of their self-presentation. While rollergirls assert that wearing sexualized, feminine uniforms is a “choice,” others feel pressured to dress “sexy” in order to attract fans. Yet my findings also illustrate the importance of considering the social context in which these performances take place. By combining these uniforms with a full-contact sport, rollergirls attempt to “undo gender” by actively resisting the gender binary that equates athleticism and toughness with masculinity. agency, not as a means to prove their femininity or heterosexuality.
My findings from an ethnographic study of three roller derby leagues suggest that many “rollergirls” view their hyper-feminine, sexualized uniforms as a playful and pleasurable expression of their sexual. Previous research on gender and sports has focused on the ways women athletes emphasize their femininity to counter critics who conflate female athleticism with mannishness and lesbianism. By placing centaurs in realistic, everyday settings, these works present a critique of Japan’s contemporary salaryman culture, while also highlighting issues of alienation and otherness that both female readers and gay men face in their daily lives. This paper examines how conventions of sexuality and gender, particularly hegemonic masculinity and heterosexuality, are constructed/deconstructed in est em’s centaur manga using the framework of intertextuality, with particular emphasis on parody, pleasure and play. Classified as shōjo (girls’) manga and BL (‘boys’ love’) manga respectively, these two works allow female readers to enjoy the pleasures of homoerotic subtexts and intertextual parody. Two of her works, Hatarake, kentaurosu! (‘Work, Centaur!’) and equus, focus exclusively on male centaurs in homosocial settings. Japanese manga artist est em (esu to emu) is notable for blurring genre boundaries and subverting established conventions in various publications since her debut in 2006.