The woman is perfected: A psychoanalytic reading of systemic abuse in women’s artistic gymnastics

This article brings forward a psychoanalytic reading of the recent abuse scandals in women’s gymnastics. By taking into consideration wider psychoanalytic literature on sport as well as gymnastics’ historical development, this structural analysis of systemic abuse focusses on two overarching questions: firstly, what is the libidinal economy of perfectionism underlying the sport, and secondly, what is the role of sexual difference and gender ideals within this economy? The paper argues that women’s gymnastics, as a sport which aims at performing perfected femininity, is submitted to deeply patriarchal structures of gendered oppression and subordination.