The Anthropology of Olympic Gymnastics

I saw Savage Minds has a post up about having to say something about the Olympics. Funny because I had been thinking the exact same thing. Fortunately, my wonderful students have saved me. We were discussing gender today and one of my female students offered the following observation: "I just think its wrong when you see a man doing the floor exercise in gymnastics". That led to a really interesting discussion of our gender concepts, expectations, cultural constructs, and homosexuality around the world, and why Blades of Glory was a really funny movie. Sometimes, I really do love my students.

Although the woman in me just had to agree with her on that one. Like, what's up with the synchronized diving?

Ah, sometimes its hard to be an anthropologist.......