“Dunking Divas”: Gender, Race, and Sexuality (1997–2013)

This chapter examines the early years of the WNBA, from its inception in 1997 until 2013. In this chapter, I argue that the WNBA made the decision right from the beginning to market the players as feminine, respectable, heterosexual women, who provided a limited challenge to the male dominance of sport and obscured the fact that players were majority Black. Using an intersectional lens and drawing on players’ own perspectives, as well as marketing material from the time, I examine the intersecting forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion to demonstrate the complicated way that WNBA players engaged with the gendered discourses that structured the league, both arguing for the promotion of femininity and recognising the difficult dynamics at play. This chapter contends that this emphasis on femininity only increased as the stability of the league was drawn into question; however, at the same time, players’ ambivalence towards this became more prominent.