Research

Current research

I am currently writing a doctoral thesis that explores the complex nuances present in social constructions of sex, sexual violence, and masculinity in Australian Football. This research is based on interviews with women about their sexual experiences with male amateur and semi-professional Australian footballers, and survey responses from male Australian footballers.

I started researching women’s sexual experiences after looking at how elite Australian footballers female romantic partners were portrayed by news media outlets. This research was nested in literature on sport and sexual violence, including the debates about Australian football that dominated the 2000s. I found a lot of narratives that discussed women but few that actually engaged with women to allow them to tell their own stories. My research is an attempt to redress this imbalance and contribute to debates about masculinity, sport, and sexual violence.

Research interests

I am primarily interested in researching men and masculinities, sex and sexual violence, and sport and gender. My research interests extend to popular culture representations of gender, sex, sexuality and sexual violence; and feminism in different contexts, such as academia, politics, and entertainment.

Publications

You can read more of my published work by clicking the links below.

Marks, Shawna. (2019) “Cinderella at the (Foot)ball: Wives and girlfriends in Australian rules football awards”, Continuum, 33(4).

Marks, Shawna. (2018). “‘Bros Before Hoes’: Violence against women in the name of ‘bromosociality’.” In Bonds of Brotherhood in Sons of Anarchy: Essays on Masculinity in the FX Series, eds. Susan Fanetti, 9-23. Jefferson: McFarland.

Marks, Shawna. (2018). “Explaining ‘Stealthing’ and the Conversation About Rape That We Need to Have” Writing From Below, 3(2): online.

Walker, Amelia, Wisdom, Travis, Marks, Shawna, Pearce, Sarah, & Challans, Bianca. (2018). “To Speak and/as Connect – Beyond the Silencing of Violence, and the Violence that is Silence.” Writing From Below, 3(2): online.